
Class 5F 54S " 
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INSTRUCTIONS 






FOR 



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& THE CULTURE OF SILK 




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MULBERRY TREE. 



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VOL. I. 



NEW-YORK: 

SOLD BY WILLIAM B. G1LLEY, 94 BROADWAY, AND BY 
THE EDITOR, 71 LIBERTY-STREET. 



1829. 



i 



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PRACTICAL iff?, 

INSTRUCTIONS AND DIRECTIONS 



FOR 



SILKWORM NURSERIES, 



AND FOR THE 



CULTURE OF THE MULBERRY TREE, 



DEDICATED TO 



THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF NEW- YORK. 



BY FELIX PASCALIS, M. D. 

Honorary Member of the Linnean Society of Paris ; of the Horticultural Society of New- 
York ; and of the American Institute, etc. 



VOL. I. 



quid tibi referam — ? 



Velleraque ut foliis depectant tenuia Seres." 

Georg. II. 121 



NEW-YORK: 

J. SEYMOUR, PRINTER, JOHN-STREET. 






*> 






DEDICATION. 



READ BEFORE THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE, 

June 18, 1829. 

Mr. President, 

The wealth of nations certainly originates from the 
produce of their lands, and from the industry of their people. 
It matters not of what nature is the first, nor from what resour- 
ces the second is elicited. If by one or by both, a surplus reve- 
nue is obtained above the absolute wants of life and for con- 
venient pursuits of prosperity and luxuries, a nation is becom- 
ing wealthy. There is, however, so great a difference in the 
intrinsic value between the kinds of products of the earth, that 
a nation not possessing those of first or of great necessity, so 
as to satisfy the wants of her people, must either possess those 
of a rare or exclusive description, or she must engage her 
industry in foreign service, or war for assumed or just 
claims, in establishing colonies and empires in foreign regions. 
Such has been many times the situation of the Roman repub- 
lic, after the death of their last king ; and in modern times, 
Helvetia, Holland, and England, have illustrated the above 
assertion. It then follows that nations possessing all kinds 
of necessary produce, are seldom exposed to the expedi- 
ency of foreign aggressions ; and nothing with the excep- 
tion of human passions, (save only some mode or way of industry 
possibly undervalued by competition,) could ever disturb their 



IV DEDICATION. 

balance of wealth and repose. But should they experience the 
loss or diminution of necessary produce by unavailing or acci- 
dental calamities, they must immediately become tributary to 
others, for the subsistence of their people. It has often happen- 
ed that a considerable increase of population over a circum- 
scribed territory, has operated upon the community like an 
absolute loss of produce, to procure which, the people have 
been obliged to work severely at low rate, and upon wages, 
to build stupendous monuments, or to tight for their sove- 
reign. Thereby they were enslaved or vanquished or des- 
troyed: thus we find that celebrated and ancient nations have 
disappeared, so that not a vestige of them can be found 
except in ancient records or ruins. Others have sur- 
vived, like the Tartars in China, or like tho Arabs, who have 
amalgamated with other nations along the nothern coast of 
Africa, even in Spain and Italy ; or from the highest regions 
of Dacia and Media, to Phenicia and Egypt. 

We call produce of the first necessity, all kinds that are re- 
quired for food ; of great necessity, those that are or must be 
used for clothing. Any other produce of the earth, which is 
confined to certain parts of the world or climate, we define as 
exclusive produce, which in consequence may be very valua- 
ble, yet never or seldom contributing to the wealth of nations, 
except such as precious metals and minerals, tea, spices, 
cochineal, and other articles of the two Jndias, where Eu- 
ropean nations can even afford to maintain expensive estab- 
lishments for the sale of a few articles of their necessary 
produce. If tobacco and cotton were still exclusive, this part 
of the world might probably be the wealthiest. 

In order to draw an estimate of the different kinds of pro- 
duce in relation to national wealth, let us be permitted to take 
that of silk only, which in the year 1827 was officially report- 
ed in parliament to have been of the quantity of 3,760,000 lbs. 
England is not a silk district, but she purchases the materia] 
for her manufactures, commerce, and consumption. She can 



DEDICATION. V 

even afford to purchase the richest manufactured silks of 
France at a duty of 30 per cent, according to the late 
treaty with Charles X. 

The silk districts of France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and 
of the Greek and Turkish dominions, (India excepted), may 
be presumed without exaggeration, to consume three times the 
above quantity ; that is, 15,240,000 lbs. the original price of 
which, brought to the standard of our money, would be equal 
to $91,440,000. This is therefore the estimate of only one 
produce and article of commerce, in favour of the old and 
against the new world, and excepting East and West Indies, the 
Brazils, and the Anglo-American provinces, which still are col- 
onies of Europe. It will not be necessary for us now to exhibit 
whatproportionofthatimmen.se capital affects the United States 
as a commercial nation ; as we intend only to infer that from 
the loss to the gain, if the States could become silk districts 
and regulate their commercial relations with the independent 
governments of South America, they would reap such annual 
surplus of wealth out of the $91,440,00 as is placed against 
the whole American products and consumption ; besides the 
profit arising from their own manufactures. The proportion 
of expenditure for silk only, was formerly in the United States, 
$8,104,837 ; it is now, $10,000,000, at least. Vide Act of 
General Convention, in Harrisburg, 1827.* 

It might appear strange, Mr. President, that the considera- 
tions here offered should have so long been overlooked. So 
rapid indeed and unexampled was the prosperity of this re- 
public, during the revolutionary wars of France, against the 
mighty powers of Europe ; so little the growth of its power 
was suspended or interrupted during the last war with Eng- 
land ; so numerous have been the domestic or general causes 
of political excitement, at the general emancipation of the 
Spanish provinces of South America ; that in the review of na- 
tional improvements, one of the most important has been over- 

* Importations of silk into the United States in 1S25, amounted to $10, 
•271,527. Vide Report of the. Committee on Agriculture to Congress. 



VI DEDICATION. 

looked, no doubt because it required more time to be matured. 
Soon after the calls made by the general government for the 
attention of our citizens to the culture of silk, the Ameri- 
can Institute of New-York was foremost in the adoption of 
effective measures for its promotion ; in addition to which, their 
kind readiness to permit my humble efforts to be enlisted in 
the cause, commands the present homage of my contribution. 
Should it be attended with some success, thanks and honor 
from the public will appertain to the institution over which 
you preside, claiming to myself nothing better than the dis- 
charge of a duty which, as an adopted citizen, and your col- 
league, I had thought it was in my power to fulfil. 

FELIX PASCALIS, H. M. A. I. 



New.York, June 18,1829. 



PREFACE. 



It has been thought expedient to divide the 
present work into as many parts or numbers as 
the progressive spirit of enterprise and success in 
the culture of silk, through the country, would 
seem to require. The necessity of such a divi- 
sion must be particularly felt by any person who 
is apprised, that in this populous and great city, 
and for a circuit of several miles, there could not 
actually be found mulberry leaves enough to feed 
a few thousand silkworms ; and, that after a good 
deal of trouble, we have had only just enough to 
test those methods as successful, which we long 
ago predicted were destined to perfect the art of 
silk culture. It r\ever was our intention to confine 
the instruction contemplated by our labours, 
within the beaten track of the old or the 



Mil PREFACE. 



recent methods of raising and tending the silk 
worm, on the respective merits of which we 
have much to say, and which it has been, and 
is, our hope to reform with great advantage. 
We shall want time, therefore, to be well under- 
stood, not so much concerning established facts, 
as on the results of the highest importance, for 
which we and others should possess the abso- 
lute requisites, that is the mulberry trees at our 
doors or within our walks. 

The following sections compose the first part 
of the practical instructions and directions on the 
silk-worm nurseries, <fyc. 

1st. A Preliminary Discourse, or History of the Silk : on 
the requisite instruction for the culture. 

2d. A Treatise on the culture of the Mulberry Tree. 

3d. Natural History : — of the Silkworm, <Szc. 

4th. The Silk Culturist, No. 1. A plan or model of a 
quarterly periodical, to be continued if approved and encou- 
raged by a sufficient number of subscribers. 



PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 



FIRST PART. 



Chinese record on the origin of Silk — its nature unknown to the ancient 
Greeks and Romans— noticed and introduced for dress under the empire 
of the Csesars — manufactured in the island of Cos — fable of the golden 
fleece guarded by a dragon — of the expedition of the Argonauts under 
Jason — silkworm seeds brought from India into Constantinople — the 
Arabs conquerors of the islands and continents in the Mediterranean — 
progress of the culture of silk in Calabria — Charles VIII. of France 
invades Naples — his Barons introduce the silkworm and the mulberry 
t r ee — trees of that age yet existing — Henry IV., Sully, and Col- 
bert promote the culture of the mulberry — how many ages have 
elapsed during the progress attained by silk growers — what difficulties 
have opposed it — which is the most suitable climate for this produce 
— its beneficial results in domestic, agricultural, and commercial inter- 
ests — history of the culture of silk in America — the art has been the 
subject of many scientific researches — three poems have been composed 
upon it — a revolution in the art and method of the culture in this cen- 
tury — its advantages compared to the old — the Greek and Turkish wars 
injurious to the growth of silk — the success of the old method of raising 
silk in the ancient districts of France and Italy. 

There doubtless exists some very ancient historical 
record in the Chinese language, purporting that the first 
silk balls or cocoons were found on a mulberry tree, or 
in tangled thickets of brush in the vicinity of the same ; 
and that the season was the beginning of summer. The 
spring had closed with a gradual increase of warm tern- 
VOL. I. 2 



10 

perature since the budding of the trees. It had elapsed 
without any remarkable vicissitudes of winds, storms, rain, 
or cold, and vegetation was luxuriant. This cocoon, on 
examination, was found to be of a substance of firm 
although flexile texture, and not thicker in any part than 
a leaf of strong paper. It contained the shrunken larva 
of a caterpillar, apparently dry, yet alive and susceptible 
of motion ; or perhaps the larva was not found, because 
being transformed into the shape of a phalcena, it had 
made its way out through an aperture. This ball was 
then softened by means of warm water, pressed, squeezed, 
and pulled apart ; by which processes it was ascertained 
that this hollow body was, in substance, a bunch or bundle 
formed by the windings of a single ply or clue of a thread 
extremely fine, but which, when twisted with others of the 
same kind, was strong enough for the woof and warp of 
a fine garment.* The most ancient and enlightened na- 
tions of Europe were ignorant of the origin and nature 
of this substance until a late age ; and seldom could they 
furnish themselves with supplies of the article. They 
thought it as rare and precious as gold ; they even pur- 
chased it by the weight of the precious metal, that is, at 
sixty-four times more than its present rate of value. Yet 
many Latin historians and poets make mention of silk or 
of various delicate textures made with Serica or Bomby- 
cina ; and from the reigns of the twelve Caesars, and 
afterwards, cloths of that valuable and rare substance 



* We have endeavoured to convey the contents of an ancient manuscript 
which had been communicated by a missionary Jesuit, Father d'Entrecolles, 
to another Jesuit, F. du Halde, the author of the Description of China, 
printed in Paris, 1733, in folio. The same document is inserted in vol. iv- 
Hist, des Voyages of the Abbe Prevot. 



Jl 

were gradually introduced among matrons of high rank ; 
and were also much sought after, as ornamental garments 
by courtezans. 

Femineum lucet sic per bombycina corpus, 

says Martial, Epig. 63, Book VIII. The Greeks, who 
were more given to traffic than the Romans, had applied 
themselves to the method of unravelling India silks of a 
close fabric ; and wrought them over, mixed with linen or 
woollen yarn. This kind of tissue was principally made 
in the island of Cos ;* but it was so transparent that the 
use of it was forbidden to men, by an edict of Tiberius. 
No certain geographical knowledge was then attainable 
of the eastern countries of Asia, where silk was raised ; 
it was supposed to originate from that part beyond the 
Indus which was called Ser, and the people Seres ; and 
hence the name of Serica, ^pixos. It is probable after 
all, that their synonymous word of bombyx, bombycina, 
by which both Greeks and Romans designated some kind 
of caterpillar, indicates that they possessed some confused 
knowledge of the animal nature of silk. The same poet 
too, quoted above, has compared the silkworm to the spider. 

Nee vana tam tenui discursat aranea tela 
Tarn leve nee bombyx pendulus urget opus. 

Epig. 38, Lib. VIII. 

It was long after Constantine the Great had removed the 
seat of the Roman empire to Byzantium, which, with 
Alexandria, were the greatest emporiums of commerce in 
the world, that the Europeans at length obtained a perfect 
knowledge of the nature and origin of silk. 

During the reign of the first Justinian, a few Greek 

* Now called the island of Stanco. 



12 

missionaries returning from Boukharia and Persia, brought 
and presented to their Christian friends a quantity of 
silkworm seeds, which they declared to have obtained 
from a still more distant country, probably China. This 
sole historical fact, if no others existed, would be sufficient 
to prove to any who know how fertile and luxuriant are 
the Thracian shores of the Bosphorus, that both the mul- 
berry tree and its long sought golden fleece* must soon 
after have been cultivated in Constantinople. It is very 
remarkable, that the creation and destruction of the 
Greek eastern empire, did equally contribute to the pro- 
pagation of the culture of silk throughout southern Eu- 
rope. After the conquest of Mahomet II., the Arabs 
commenced, under their caliphs, their dominion on the 
Mediterranean shores and islands, Sicily, the Morea, and 
Spain as far as the columns of Hercules ; and they every- 
where planted the mulberry tree, and encouraged the 
culture of silk. Whether it was afterwards by the crusa- 

* The golden fleece of the ancient fable or mythology, is so far connected 
With our subject, that Hager, the author of the Pantheon Chinois, conjec- 
tures that it was raw silk in its natural state, resembling so many flowing 
threads of gold. In addition to this authority we beg leave to remark,, 
that Colchis, a region on the east of the Euxine Sea, celebrated for the expe- 
dition of the Argonauts, was the emporium of the Seres or Chinese, who 
brought there their silk, which, according to custom, they displayed under 
the flag of their nation, representing a dragon. The hero Jason com- 
manded thus an expedition either for plunder or for commerce. There are 
other analogies in this fable, especially that of Medea, his wife, punishing 
her rival Glance by the means of a poisoned gown which had been given 
her by the sun, her father. Indeed, many poets have said that silk was the- 
produce of the sun upon the trees. For the enumeration of these and 
ancient writers who have alluded to the article of silk or mentioned it ; 
also, to establish the identity of the Seres with the Chinese, we refer the 
reader to a Dissertation by Professor Anthon, of Columbia College, ap- 
pended to his edition of Horace, now in the press, in a letter to Dr. Felix 
Pascalis. 



13 

ders in the east, or by Charles VIII., who invaded the 
kingdom of Naples, that a great impulse was given in 
France to adopt and improve this cultivation, it would be 
difficult now to ascertain. To the latter, it is believed, 
the credit is more due than to the former, since the French 
then imported from Calabria a great quantity of mulberry 
plants and seeds of the silkworm ; for the Abbe Boissier- 
Sauvages, a renowned practical culturist, has observed, 
that many old and venerable mulberry trees, supposed to 
have existed two hundred years in the Cevennes and 
Piedmont, can be traced to this last epoch, and to the 
ancient names and families of knights who accompanied 
the king in that expedition. 

But it became the cherished task of the great Sully, 
minister to Henry IV., to establish and fix for ever in his 
own country, all the means required to extend and perpe- 
tuate the culture of silk, not only as a territorial staple, 
but as the material for extensive and never-failing manu- 
factures. Methodically attentive to every encouraging 
measure, he distributed the plants, he extended the privi- 
leges of communes, in agricultural affairs ; and endowed 
the city of Lyons with many immunities*. This great 



* To royal munificence, the French are no doubt indebted for much of 
their progress in the growth of silk. Olivier de Serres, a renowned agri- 
cultural writer, was however a cotemporary of Henry IV., and a personal 
friend, who more particularly fixed the attention of the monarch to that 
improvement. He told him that " the mulberry tree was full of God's 
blessings" ! ! The same concurring spirit between the government and 
the people was evinced under Lewis XIV. His munificence in aiding and 
completing great works for the Canal of Languedoc, and rewarding the 
projector, Mons. Riquet, with nobility and property, immediately procured 
from the latter and company, that the whole borders of the canal should 
be planted with mulberry trees for the use of the good people of his most 
Christian Majesty. 



14 

emporium of silk has ever since continued celebrated for 
its immense fabrication of silk stuffs, and for the beauty 
and richness of their textures, which can answer the de- 
mands and the tastes of all nations, as well as bend to the 
purposes of fashion and elegant display, in every article 
of clothing and ornamental furniture ; and at the same 
time, are acknowledged to be superior in quality to those 
of China, or of any part of India. 

It would then appear, that thirteen hundred years have 
elapsed before the valuable art of raising silk extended 
from the Bosphorus over meridional Europe, as far as its 
Atlantic boundaries. It would therefore be much to our 
purpose to inquire into the real obstacles that so long 
retarded the progress of this cultivation, especially as the 
intermediate nations enjoyed long intervals of peace and 
internal quiet, favourable to the arts of industry and do- 
mestic economy. The principal difficulty was undoubt- 
edly the want of a proper climate, the most suitable range 
of temperature being limited to a space within the latitude 
of the arctic temperate zone, and the nature and habits of 
the insect demanding, that the fitting degrees of heat, 
and elastic state of the atmosphere should accord with 
the budding, growth, and mature crop of the mulberry 
foliage. 

This remark may lead, in some minds, to this objec- 
tion; that if heat and vegetation are so essential, why 
should not tropical regions which never suffer from wintry 
vicissitudes, and in which vegetation goes on uninterrupt- 
edly, be found to be the most natural and productive soil 
for the tree as well as for the produce of its caterpillar ? 
We could assign many reasons to account for a contrary 
result; for though heat, either natural or artificial, i* 



15 

requisite for the silkworm, yet its uniform range within 
certain degrees, and a peculiar constitution of the atmos- 
phere, are far more essential ; we can affirm that without 
these requisites the expectation of crops will always prove 
delusive. The occasionally excessive heats and ordinary 
great humidity of warm countries, are as little favorable 
to the silkworm, as they are unapt to impart vigour, and 
fitness for labour of mind and body, to the inhabitants. 
Yet, at the same time there are select spots in tropic India 
and the Levant, where, owing to the modifying influence 
of localities, silk is raised in abundance ; but evidently of 
an inferior quality. The French themselves made great 
efforts, during the last century to sustain that culture in 
their colony of Bourbon, but only to witness its irremedi- 
able degeneration. When the proper climate, that is, one 
of suitable temperatures is obtained, and such is to be 
found in many states of the American confederacy, there 
are still other difficulties attending the cultivation of silk, 
which few at present properly estimate ; and even suppos- 
ing them known and appreciated, it would still be impos- 
sible for individual exertions to remove them all at once, 
and when they are removed, it will only be gradually and 
by the concurrence of public authority affording protec- 
tion, encouragement, and even gratuitous advances or 
bounties, which, as we know, have been liberally awarded 
in all nations which have preceded us in this undertaking. 
But in order the better to understand or define those 
difficulties in their nature and number, we must place in 
view a sketch of the national and individual advantages 
which are contemplated, and aimed at by the introduction 
of the culture of silk ; these being well judged and esti- 
mated, it is certainly to be expected that a proper sense of 



16 

patriotism, of personal interest, and of the instruction 
necessary, must at last surmount every difficulty. 

1st. The article of silk added to the other pursuits of 
agriculture, the more enhances the value of land, that, 
by it, such parcels as are poor and waste can be profitably 
employed. 

2nd. Said produce or staple of standard value, accord- 
ing to its quality, is always exchangeable in commerce in 
all its several conditions, as it is neither perishable nor 
corruptible.* 



* The eloquent French author of the History of the Indies, has remarked, 
that the government of Rome had more contributed than any nation of 
Europe to the renewal of learning in the middle ages, by promoting litera- 
ture and science, and especially by encouraging the works of genius and 
talents in the fine arts, through the means of which the influence of the 
church on manners and opinions, and the extension of its power over the 
world, were better secured. 

In the same spirit the worship in the church of Rome, as well as the 
structure of her temples, have been regulated and devised in magnificent 
and costly style. Such a policy, it may be said, does not accord much with 
the characteristic humbleness and charity of the apostolic religion. Never- 
theless we agree in the matter of fact with the Abbe Raynal, nay, his re- 
mark can be illustrated by another which we suppose has not yet been 
noticed, that nations professing the Catholic faith are greater consumers 
of manufactured silk than any other; not because they happen to be 
successful culturists, but from circumstances which if not explained would 
almost appear paradoxical. Among Catholics the article of silk is requir- 
ed, 1st. for dress by all the dignitaries of the church; 2nd. by their litur- 
gical laws, it cannot be dispensed with for the service of the altar ; 3rd. 
it is used for the decoration of all churches, chapels, and images. 

In the first case, silk for dress is merely out of form, just as other digni- 
taries in colleges, universities, courts of justice, &c. who have adopted a 
dress in the plain but solemn form of a gown. Bishops and prelates of 
inferior degrees universally make use of the finest materials of linen, silk, 
lace and gold; but in the acts of worship and sacramental ceremonies. 
the Catholics are enjoined to use sacred vestments, appertaining only to the 



3rd. It is a material for the manufacture of all kinds of 
filature, for raw silk, of machinery for weaving warping ; 
for building a variety of looms, bringing into use every 
process of dying, &c. which business being divided and 
subdivided, affords numerous branches of mechanical in- 
dustry, by which immense populations in Europe are now 
prosperously supported. 

4th. Nurseries of silkworms create also various branches 
of business among the poorer classes ; the making of hurdles, 
frames, baskets, &c. gathering mulberry leaves and brush- 
wood, detaching and cleaning cocoons, and many other 
sorts of employments incident on the management and 
completion of the culture, as if every individual of the 
poorest community could not fail reaping from it some 
advantage and benefit. 

This is certainly not an exaggerated exposition, and it 
would be a very easy task to embellish it, especially by 
representing its diffusion throughout a rational, industri- 
ous, and well-governed community ; and instead of being 



sacerdotal character, and which must vary in color according to the times, 
festivals, thanksgivings, public fasts and funerals. These are numerous 
and rich, because piety has no limits when it is allowed to contribute by 
suitable offerings, and which must be reckoned by congregational sections. 
The same zeal and profusion are remarked in the ornaments of chapels, 
altars, and of images, in and around which a great concourse of the faithful 
are invited and expected to assemble. It would be difficult to make an 
estimate of those valuable velvets, brocades, satins, damasks for dress, 
and of all kinds of draperies for decoration, thus incessantly engaging 
enterprise in commerce and manufactures, for the sake of religion. The 
best way to give a full idea at present is to know that they must be obtain- 
ed in Roman Catholic countries, in South America, for instance, from distant, 
Europe and Asia ! A competition with which, in the vicinity of the im- 
mense Catholic provinces of our neighbours, would greatly surpass the 
value of all the present exports from the United States to that country, 
VOL. T. 3 



18 

superfluous, the smallest item advanced, each detail would 
be a delineation of innumerable sources of the prosperity 
of a large and powerful commonwealth. Yet some inquiry 
might be urged respecting the specific benefit that could 
be depended upon as arising to each farmer's family from 
the culture of silk ? To answer which, we should not 
separate the cares of a mulberry plantation from those of 
a silk nursery. A clear-headed industry can well unite 
both, and a farmer should be contented to supply his 
neighbours with a crop of mulberry leaves, when he could 
not use the whole of it himself : the same would not be 
useless if not called for, as it is an excellent fodder for 
cattle, or even a proper substance for rich manure. We 
may further show in succeeding pages, how an ordinary 
orchard planted with one hundred grown standard trees, 
on two acres of ground, can produce ten thousand pounds 
of foliage, the value of which would be equal to one hun- 
dred dollars ; that, much less than that quantity is con- 
vertible into six hundred pounds of cocoons, worth at least 
three hundred dollars, which would engage the cares of 
his family no longer than forty days. However loosely 
those estimates are actually drawn, we aver, that they will 
not vary much from our future tables, with other profita- 
ble matters which we cannot at present review. Suffice 
it to say, that the silk culture needs not many arguments 
to show its importance to the farmer ; to realize which, it 
will now clearly be understood, that there is no obstacle 
nor difficulty impeding, unless it be the insufficiency or 
want of mulberry trees, the propagation of which should 
be strenuously attended to. 

That this is a great and material difficulty in the way 
of introducing the culture of silk in a country where it 



19 

has not yet been pursued, has generally been acknow- 
ledged, spoken of, decanted upon, but not yet sufficiently 
estimated. As an article of necessity, it should be well 
understood, that the quantity of this plant should not only 
be commensurate to the exigencies of a first required 
material, but to those of imperfect attempts, of trials for 
experiment, of conveniency, and even of inducement to 
all who can do something in the way of general industry, 
besides that the abundance of it is indeed the only resource 
for keeping up annually the renewal of our crops, against 
the rapid and frequent destruction or decay of the tree, 
unavoidably brought on by early or by repeated strip- 
pings of all its foliage. 

Sully, that wisest of ministers, understood well the only 
point of mystery in the matter, when he provided that the 
mulberry tree should, by ordinance, be planted and distri- 
buted throughout all the southern districts of the king- 
dom, whether the people liked it or not ; and Colbert 
provided that not an inconsiderable bounty should always 
be claimed for every sound sapling of three years old. 
This was an indispensable provision. The fodder for the 
silkworm is not like grain or such other vegetable produc- 
tions as may at any time be obtained from a distance ; it 
must always be at the door, or within the reach of the 
silk-grower, who should have it fresh and in the best con- 
dition* Therefore, in proportion to the density of the 
population the tree must be multiplied, whether it be 
public or private property ; and if it is only taken into 
consideration, that the price of the successive crops to be 
gathered from day to day is rather regulated by local 
convenience than by any intrinsic quality, we will easily 
perceive the necessity of a provision, as needful as the 



20 

implements oi agriculture on which the farmer must place 
dependence for the future harvest. And in the next place, 
what is the result when the mulberry tree is thus multiplied 
by public authority ; or provided to every township at a 
small advance ; or set out on commons and in plantations 
on certain liberal conditions ? — Why, that there would 
scarcely be a family but might, for the sake of amusement, 
or for profit to be divided between the workers, or for 
pride in an agricultural pursuit connected with a novel 
process of animal economy, patriotically enlist in the forty 
days' experiment, with the flattering prospect that the 
most successful would have the honour of bearing the 
palm from the neighbourhood in the production of this 
valuable premium granted by Providence to human in- 
dustry. Here we have a true exemplification of the 
second means alluded to for the naturalization of the cul- 
ture of silk, without exposure to great losses, in the pos- 
sible case of the failure of a crop ; because the pricipal 
expenditure of time and labour will have fallen on that 
portion of domestic industry, which could be spared in 
families, composed, as they generally are, of many un- 
employed hands, such as females, children, and servants ; 
the least or weakest of whom could be made very service- 
able in this business, and most eagerly fulfil the direction? 
for obtaining the golden fleece. 

The origin and history of silk in the old world, reminds 
us of another part of our task respecting its introduction 
into several ancient colonies of North America, and of its 
subsequent interruption in the United States. A moment 
of attention to those past events, is closely connected with 
the future prospect of success which we would wish to 
hold out for the promotion of this culture. After a lona 



11 

revolutionary war, political events, and divers interests 
have interrupted it and almost caused it to be forgotten ; 
perhaps better and more s flourishingly to be revived, under 
the due guidance of public spirit and genuine instruction. 
In this view we transcribe here the first part of our report 
as requested, and published by the American Institute, 
15th of September 1828. 

" From an official document, as transmitted to Congress 
by the Secretary of the Treasury, February last, it is 
ascertained that King James I. in the year 1623, gave 
his ministers positive orders to direct the attention of the 
settlers in Virginia to the culture of silk, and to supply 
them forthwith with worm eggs, with the mulberry, and with 
printed instructions.- — He wished also that this culture 
might be preferred to that of tobacco, and make up for the 
complete failure which had been experienced in propaga- 
ting the same in England. The royal command having 
been duly communicated to the Governor and Council of 
Virginia, the Colonial Assembly passed a general act in 
execution thereto. It was not much attended to however, 
and not until 1656, when the Legislature enacted a 
penalty of ten pounds of tobacco upon any one who had 
failed to plant ten mulberry trees for every acre of land in 
his possession. The following bounties or premiums were 
also provided — to wit : 4000 p. T. to a colonist who would 
pursue the culture and the trade of silk ; and 10,000 do. 
to any one who could export £200 sterling worth of raw 
silk in one year. 

"These rewards and fines were not faithfully granted 
nor exacted : some were altered or repealed at different 
periods of time. We are not informed of the real causes 
that induced a relaxation of the adopted plan, nor of it* 



22 

proportionate success or failures, except that King Charles 
the II. had used some silk garment from Virginia, and 
that in the year 1664, a colonist, a member of the legisla- 
ture, had claimed a bounty for having planted 70,000 mul- 
berry trees on his land. 

" From the document above stated we are also informed, 
that in the year 1732 the culture of silk was pursued with 
great spirit in the settlements of Georgia, under both royal 
and colonial regulations ; namely — by the grant of land 
for the planting 100 mulberry trees upon every ten acres, 
when cleared, and ten years after cultivation. This 
novel means of economical and agricultural industry so 
far progressed, that within two years of the above date a 
parcel of reeled?silk was transmitted to the mother country, 
and there made into a piece of silk as a present for the 
Queen. In the year 1721 a public filature house was 
erected at Savannah by order of trustees, and rebuilt 
seven years after, because it had been consumed by fire* 
The domestic pursuit appears to have been so far maintain- 
ed there, that in the year 1790, after the Revolution, a 
small quantity of silk was brought into Savannah from 
the upper lands, to be sold for exportation, and was 
disposed of at the price of from 13 to 20 shillings per 
pound. 

" We can nearly say as much of the zeal manifested in 
South Carolina, where the same measures made some 
progress and impression upon the inhabitants. — The silk 
culture was so far countenanced by the wealthiest of the 
commonwealth, that they rendered it fashionable among 
the principal ladies and families of the capital. From 
Charleston yearly exportations of raw silk were made for 
the English manufactures. Presents, also, of complete 



23 

dresses of the colonial silk were made to the Princess of 
Wales and to Lord Chesterfield. The price of this 
American produce happened to be enhanced to that of the 
best quality. 

" Whether the successive attempts of the mother coun- 
try to establish the culture of silk in different colonies 
were directed by the choice of climate, at first temperate 
enough, then southerly, and afterwards more northerly ; 
or whether that government were impelled by different 
motives in their successive efforts for placing colonies in 
that great undertaking, we have no means to ascertain. 
But it is not without surprise, that we find the great colony 
of Pennsylvania called at so late a period as 1771, to the 
benefit of this improvement of territorial and manufactur- 
ing industry. It was principally commenced there by the 
help of their colonial agent in England, Benjamin Frank- 
lin, who procured the best documents for instruction, and 
machinery for various manufacturing processes. He 
directed also, wholesome regulations to forward the 
general adoption and practical art of the culture through- 
out the country — among which, one was, a company, or 
society, that, by the help of legislative provision, could 
form and maintain capital stock, for the purchase and 
sale of the raw material, reverting the profits, in balance, 
to the extension of domestic manufacture. A public 
filature was consequently devised, built up, and assorted. 
If so much could be done within a few years, we are the 
more compelled to regret the adverse circumstances at- 
tending the revolutionary war, which had thus put an end 
to the measures and emulation of this most industrious 
community. We have no data that could enable us to 
make an estimate of the proportionate success that had 



24 

already been obtained. An important experiment had, 
however, been made, and remains authoritative, it should 
be attended to by our future silk culturists in cases of the 
want of white mulberry leaves after hatching : it is, to feed 
the worms with the leaves of the native mulberry, which 
probably, may bud much sooner in the spring, than the 
exotic trees are ready to be plucked. This historical 
summary of the culture of silk in this part of the world 
since its first introduction until the war for independence, 
embraces a period of 1 43 years ; from which very important 
inferences will obviously assist us in the subject we are now 
investigating. 

" At the awful period which tried men's souls, and 
universally compelled the inhabitants of these thirteen 
provinces to disregard their agricultural pursuits, and 
other personal interests, it could not be expected that any 
of the energetic measures which had been taken, could 
be peaceably continued ; nay, that they could even be 
usefully remembered, and resumed. The document 
above cited, tells us, however, that the silk culturists of 
Connecticut, after their political struggle was over, gradu- 
ally entered upon their usual industry, and that some 
efforts were attempted in other states, even in Kentucky, 
and also in some of the upper counties of the state of 
New-York. We learn further, that no section of the 
Union has been so prompt in reviving the culture, as our 
neighbours on the other side of the Sound, and to whom 
the more credit is due, that they never have received any 
help from their fellow-citizens, nor from England. Yet, 
certain facts have been stated and circulated, respecting 
their accurate knowledge of the art of silk growing, and 
remarkablv so in three different counties. These wo 



2i> 

Would wish to have seen more accurately defined. The 
friends of the country and of the prosperity of its inhabi- 
tants in a particular kind of culture, must and can under- 
stand very well, that exaggerated reports on the subject, 
would ultimately deprive their authors and supporters of 
such a share of encouragement, confidence and credit, as 
they may really be in want of for further progress. We 
never could ascertain what quantity of silk, raw, reeled or 
organzine, could be manufactured at home in Connecticut, 
and what part of the manufacturing machinery is in use 
among them, besides the domestic small and large wheel. 
From Mansfield we know that the largest quantity of sew- 
ing and twisted silk is obtained ; but all exaggerated 
reports, to the contrary notwithstanding, we have by fair 
calculation ascertained that the whole cannot exceed in 
quantity 3 or 400 pounds of reeled silk.* Considering 
every thing and circumstance which have been adverse in 
that state, we have reason to admire the intelligence and 
perseverance of those culturists : we will say further, that if 
they and those of Pennsylvania had been in former years 
the subjects of as much care as the Southern settlements 
had anciently been ; the culture of silk would certainly be 
there more flourishing, and in command of materials 
sufficient at least for considerable exportation, or for home 
consumption. 

" Such are the remarkable facts which we thought 
necessary to assemble and condense within a chronolo- 
gical history of the silk of the United States, embracing 



* We have just found out that this account is so far correct, that a greater 
quantity mentioned hereafter, is meant of raw or spun silk 

VOL. i. 4 



, 26 

to this'day a period of nearly two centuries, and from it 
we shall now be able to draw the following conclusions. 

1. " At no period of that long succession of years has 
there been any cause to complain of the seasons or cli- 
mate, of defects or of the quality of land, unfavourable 
to the growth of the mulberry tree, much less of any 
congenial difficulty in raising the silk worm ; nor has 
there been found any imperfection or degeneracy in the 
quality of American Silk." 

2. The failure of the culture of silk in these states, is 
therefore sufficiently accounted for, by the simple fact of 
the seven years of revolutionary war, and by such circum- 
stances independent of the climate and other localities, 
as we shall have occasion to notice again in subsequent 
discourses. But resuming our series of historical events 
relative to our subject, it will be interesting to remark that 
from the most remote period of its introduction into 
Europe to this day, it has abundantly engaged the disqui- 
sitions and researches of the learned in the Latin, Ger- 
man, Italian, French, English and Portuguese languages, 
to an almost incredible number ; and further that a sort 
of enthusiastic zeal for its promulgation and for ennobling 
the rules and mysteries attending the culture of the proper 
plant, and raising the wonderful insect, has dictated no 
less than three poetical works. 

The Latin poem of Marco Geronimo Vida, Bishop 
of Cremona; de Bombycum curatione etusu. 1527. 

An English poem ; the silke worms and their fluyes, 
lively described in verse, by T. B. London, 1699. 

La serodocimasie, on histoire des vers qui filent la 
sole. Poeme. 1600. 

But in modern times, there has been a continual suc- 
cession of new investigator* and writers. In all that we 



may well judge and compare on these matters, we have 
remarked less philosophy than attention to evident and 
useful rules. Statistical accounts are given in our, days 
of the produce of silk, in the most celebrated districts. 
For instance ; it was ascertained in 1812, that this staple 
alone was worth to France 30 millions of livres, and that 
by recent improvements in 1826, it was raised to 60 
millions. ( Vid. Ch. Verri, art de cultiver les muriers, fyc 
Lyon, p. 1. 1826.) That the same article which in the 
former kingdom of Italy, was worth 20,800,000 livres, is 
now exchangeable in commerce for 42,800,000 livres. 
(Vid. Dandolo, Art d'elever les versdSoie. p. 281, edit, 
de 1825.) All this has been owing, no doubt, to the 
progress of knowledge in natural sciences, of economy 
in husbandry and agriculture, both promoted by more 
than two hundred works that were dictated by the pro- 
phetic impulse of their authors, who had foreseen and 
promised such treasures. 

We are arrived at a period of a revolution in the cul- 
ture of silk, throughout Europe, which is the more cal- 
culated to excite the attention of the commercial world, 
that a destructive war is yet hovering in the east, over the 
fertile regions of Greece and of the Bosphorus, where 
the produce of silk has always been very abundant ; its 
value is in consequence greatly enhanced in every country 
where it is manufactured. The governments of England 
and France have, in recent times, devised the means of 
opening new sources of this agricultural industry in 
distant regions which they can control. The first in 
Bengal, and other places in the Mediterranean ; and the 
latter in Pondicherry. This ancient colony in India already 
can boast of an individual establishment in full operation, 
which, it is said, may give one thousand pounds of silk. 
On the other hand, the government of France and the 



38 

present innovators are about endeavouring to substitute tu 
former sorts of white mulberry, the celebrated Morus alba 
sinensis, formerly raised in the royal gardens only, the 
superior quality of which is decidedly acknowledged, which 
we will hereafter describe. 

Another interesting improvement in our culture, calls 
now for our attention, and promises an increase of silk 
crops, to replace those which were destroyed, and may 
long be interrupted in the extensive regions on and be- 
yond the Mediterranean Sea. 

We are alluding to a nobleman from Milan, Count 
Dandolo, knight of the iron crown, he. commanding 
property and being devoted to agricultural pursuits,, 
has been held up as the discoverer of a new method for 
raising silkworms. His system has been much admired 
and scrupulously adhered to by many followers, among 
whom we find distinguished names, also some learned 
naturalists and culturists. The Count died several years 
ago, much regretted in his French possessions, nearVareze. 
He left, however, a complete treatise, in which he had ar- 
ranged his views, mode, rules, and practical means, which 
has been translated into several languages. 

Having paid great attention to this modern system, we 
must however remark, that it exhibits many obstacles to its 
general adoption in countries in which the old natural 
and established method has, during three centuries, satis- 
fied the industry and expectations of the culturists. Its 
obstacles are found, namely, in local provisions of build- 
ings to be exclusively appropriated ; in a calculated space 
of surfaces ; in the temperature, moisture — all to be ascer- 
tained, night and day, by instruments ; and in a variety 
of utensils which his book requires and delineates by 
plates ; in viewing which, we frequently were reminded 
of the like minutia which rnierht be shown to farmers or to 



■* 



29 

country people, were they to learn by book to raise poultry 
or cattle, and to take care of them in their barn-yards or 
stables. Worse than these, there is an air of philosophical 
apparatus in the method of Dandolo, not much compatible 
with the diversified cares of the husbandman at this and 
other periods of the seasons. His precepts and rules are, 
however, more profitable. 

Be it as it may, we do not find in the work of Dandolo 
any new rationale or philosophical principle, that was 
unknown or practically neglected in the eighteenth cen- 
tury. He has only ascertained that the papillo or moth 
of the silkworm, as a true pkaltena, is better and more 
profitably managed for laying eggs, in a dark or obscure 
room or box, than in full daylight ; and that during their 
short existence, the male and female must not be left to 
themselves, and had better to be assisted. 

But there is something highly interesting to account 
for in this class of lepidoptera ; which we would emphati- 
cally call the cold bombyx, and which in all stages of ex- 
istence requires a warm temperature, without in the least 
participating in it. Caloric it appears is necessary for its 
growth, while another element sustains alone its vitality. 
Long before Dandolo, the celebrated Abbe Sauvages, 
and the Abbe Rosier, had however led the natural ob- 
server and culturist to the phenomenon of electricity as the 
mysterious laws which can reconcile us to a proper theory 
by which cases of opposite nature are so often called forth 
in the management of this insect, for the pursuit of rich 
crops of silk : yet the Italian author has left the subject 
perfectly unnoticed. His own theory is composed from 
systematic practice, the principles of which being fully 
explained and applied to domestic method, would secure 
all the advantages which he could reap, without encoun- 
tering the same expenses. Dandolo has told us already, 



30 

4 - that his art to raise silkworms can be attained by any 
body who can have a room for the purpose, and mulberry 
trees enough at his disposal." (p. 376.) We can farther 
say, that if an ordinary culturist (magnanier), assisted by 
his family seldom obtains more than eight pounds of silk 
from one ounce of seeds, he is still better off than Dan- 
dolo's disciple, reaping twelve pounds, because he has not 
been at a heavy expense for buildings, for attendants, for 
preparations, &c. 

Let us be permitted to mention here some of the en- 
dearing circumstances attending the old domestic method 
of raising silkworms. When speaking of some causes 
which in former years suspended and retarded the progress 
of the silkworm in the American colonies, we had occa- 
sion to contrast the ordinary labours of black slaves with the 
" intelligence, delicacy, and unwearied attention required 
for little animals, which must be nursed and fed by the 
same hand during five or six weeks ; cares, did we say, so 
easily but exclusively well discharged by females, whose 
outward senses can be better guides for them than ther- 
mometers, to judge of the temperature and pure air that are 
requisite, whether they are engaged in them for amusement 
or as a branch of domestic economy. 5 ' (Report to the 
Institute.) Admitting that all this is an unquestionable 
matter of fact, we may further add, the benefits possibly 
to be derived from family emulation, each one in pur- 
suit of a premium for comfort, for dress and pocket-money. 
Such is the old and natural method which has prevailed 
in the nations which have made silk a staple produce of 
their country, enhanced the value of their lands, and created 
various branches of industry subservient to this kind of 
culture, which the new methodized system never would 01 
could have better effected. 



PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE, 



SECOND PART. 



Kemarkable advice irom an American culturist on the necessary instruc- 
tion for silk growers — practical instruction is required to obtain a crop 
of silk — a silk American district — comparative remarks on its use and 
quality — a book of documents on the growth and manufacture of silk, 
published by the government of the United States — ditto by the govern- 
ment of Bavaria — others on the same subject — instruction united to 
practice — errors and notions in some English and American publications 
— explained and refuted — instances of American correct instruction — 
the art of silk growing requires observation more than genius and talents, 

On the subject of instruction as required for the ma- 
nagement of silkworms, we would beg leave to address 
the people of these states in the words of an eminent 
member of the agricultural society of the state of New- 
York. " You have in your hands all the means requisite 
for success, and for enriching yourselves by the culture of 
silk. It remains with you to compare and judge your 
many attempts in it, and discover wherein they have been 
defective" (Address of Peter Delabigarre," Vol. I. 
Agric. Trans, state of New-York, 1801.) 

Those are sufficiently instructed, who by their practical 
cares and provisions can command a yearly crop of silk, 
in due proportionate expenditure of time and money ; 



t>r who draw and collect this product from the parts of a 
district and the vicinity, in such quantities as will supply 
and maintain the several important branches of silk ma- 
nufacture, which again gives an increase to the value of 
that material. How many culturists of that description there 
are on this side of the Atlantic sea, we shall not pre- 
sume to define. Still we will adduce one instance : An 
intelligent inhabitant of the town of Mansfield, Connec- 
ticut, has informed us, that there are about one hundred 
families in it, who can annually raise two thousand six 
hundred and eighty-seven pounds of sewing silk of the 
best quality ; the sale or exchange of which in commerce 
can be said to produce ten dollars per pound, at which 
rate there would be a profit of two hundred and sixty- 
eight dollars for each family* 

Now let us apply to ourselves the precept of Mr. De- 
labigarre, by comparing and judging. Why is the best 
silk thus employed and turned into sewing silk, for which 
there is always waste or inferior silk enough, and why is 
not this best silk kept for the reels and for the looms ? 
Discover wherein you are defective I Farther progress is 
evidently to be made, and it is hoped, it will take place. 

A copious volume of instruction has already been pub- 
lished by order of the United States' government, (Do- 
cument 158, Washington, 1828) full of matters relative 
to the growth and manufacture of silk. It is a kind of 
encyclopedic repertory; yet we think that it embraces 
two different subjects which require opposite lands of 
means, tastes, and perceptions. The one is an agricultu- 
ral and domestic pursuit, as much as the other resolves 
itself into a mechanical and commercial business. The 
first is annual and temporary. The second is indefinite 



33 

in point of season or duration. Each of them is there- 
fore suitable to different classes of men and sorts of edu- 
cation or establishments, although they may unite their 
interests and be subservient to the prosperity of each 
other ; but rarely can a silk grower be a manufacturer, 
and vice versa. However strange it appears, the fact is 
true, that a silk-growing country always abounds with 
excellent manufacturers ; but these never commence their 
pursuits except where much and enough of the raw mate- 
rials awaits their enterprise ; such is England, for instance s 
where the most abundant supply of silk from abroad is 
always provided and secured. 

There is also the Document 226, from the same source 
of the general government, a translation, from the German 
language, of a treatise on the culture of silk in Germany, 
by M. de Huzzi, of Munich, and circulated there as late 
as 1824. It is well known that the inhabitants of the 
United States in the new world, have possessed more 
knowledge at the same time on the silk culture, than the 
whole kingdom of Bavaria, when that book was pub- 
lished there to encourage, and to promote on the subject 
the zeal of its inhabitants. The very choicest part of 
this German instruction cannot therefore be better than 
that which in former and of late years, has been collected 
from the ancient silk districts of France and of Italy. 
We nevertheless confess the work to be instructive in what 
relates to the ancient history of silk ; and if the enterprise 
becomes successful, it will be the first in so northern a 
latitude as 47° N. 

We have with great confidence perused an excellent 
translation by William H. Vernon of Rhode Island, of a 
work by M. de la Brousse ; it is an excellent treatise, bui 
not carried up to the time of the great reformation or 



34 

period of improvement of 1823. Several other reeen. 
provincial works from France and Italy have reached us, 
as good as the above mentioned State Documents, among 
which we have particularly noticed that of Mons. Redares 
du Gard, in the southern departments of France. He is 
of opinion to locate the silk culture almost any where 
except in the vicinity of seas, lakes, and rivers ; provided 
that both trees and worm seeds should always be grafted 
and replaced by sorts from different climates or latitudes. 
This is not a new principle in agriculture and husbandry : 
but we will hereafter vindicate its particularly happy influ- 
ence in the culture of silk. 

It is not here pretended, as it might be inferred, that the 
necessary instruction is chiefly to be acquired from some 
selected elementary books ; far from professing that opin- 
ion, we repeat what we have already alluded to, that skill 
in this pursuit must always have been acquired by some ex- 
perience or operative activity. Many learned works, we 
are sorry to say, contain errors enough to lead many no- 
vices into error. Let the following illustrate our assertion. 
In Rees' Universal Dictionary, vol. xxxiv. we read the 
following in relation to silkworms. " These creatures are 
never offended by stench of any kind." The same arti- 
cle suggests that damp, or moist southerly winds, however, 
may affect them. The whole is asserted on the authority 
of Malpighi who, although an eminent naturalist, was not 
nor could he ever have been a practical culturist.* The 
fact is, that nothing can be more deprecated than any 



* We have carefully examined the first volume of the London Philo- 
sophical Transactions, which contains a compendium of Malpighi's work 
on the nature and anatomy of the silkworm, but Ave have found there no- 
thing that could authorise the quotation above alluded I 






35 

source of impure air within the reach of the nurseries of 
our insect, which would not only be injurious to any pros- 
pect of crops, but to the life of as many thousands in a 
few days as compose the whole brood. Archibald Steven- 
son,* an accurate English observer, witnessed and related 
how triumphantly it had been proved in the city of Tou- 
louse, that the silkworms raised in the huts of poor country 
peasants, were more productive, because enjoying the 
pure air, through cracks and broken windows, than those 
that were reared in the city houses and confined apart- 
ments of the rich. 

We have also paid some attention to various publica- 
tions and learned journals of this country, containing 
essays on the art of raising silkworms, which abound with 
crude notions, erroneous practices, and even with fruitless 
attempts to manage those insects better than European 
culturists. We will advert here to a few of those mistakes 
without reference to their authors, the better to guard the 
inexperienced experimenters against the cheap instruction 
given by those who never have acquired it from genuine 
sources. 

With the view of trading in the article of worm seeds 
of the best stock or kind, the subject of the temperature 



* Probably some such obstacles frustrated the introduction of the cul- 
ture and growth of silk into England, where it had been warmly pursued 
in the reigns of James I. and Charles II. And long after, when a number 
of gentlemen associated themselves upon the most liberal principles to 
benefit their country, by this exotic produce, they spared neither pains 
nor cost to obtain correct information and the best materials ; and even 
there were gentlemen of observation kept during many years in France, 
who took the trouble to visit, in detail, the most productive silk districts ; 
and some of their reports or works on the subject have been reprinted 
and circulated in this country. (Vide Museum of Foreign Literature, 
New-England Farmer, and the work of Archibald Stevenson.) 



to 

was taken and discussed : it was a question to ascertain 
whether the cold of winter was injurious. Some said the seeds 
might be put into an ice-house, left to frost ; at their proper 
time they will not the less be hatched by the advancing sea- 
son or by artificial heat. This is all very true, and was 
not, as a discovery, made in America. But on the other 
hand, seeds which have undergone various or opposite 
temperatures, above or below 45°, are nearly good for 
nothing, from two important causes. They give gene- 
rally a sickly brood. Dandolo says that he could define 
their diseases according to the specific time during which 
they were thus neglectingly confined. Such seeds never 
can be hatched simultaneously. The cold-kept seeds will 
be late, and the warm will be premature. The difference 
of many hours at birth, is sufficient to constitute breeds 
of different ages and requiring different cares, additional 
troubles, attendants, and confusion in a nursery. This 
evil is so much dreaded by experienced culturists, that 
more effectually to guard against it, they put to hatch 
double and treble the quantity of seeds they intend to 
raise ; and as they should all pullulate together, they have 
the choice to remove all those that were hatched early or 
late in the same day : keeping those only which came 
out from the shell, at the same period, or within a few 
hours. Such a brood is the more perfect, that the 
worms will moult, mount, and spin about the same time, 
provided they continue to enjoy the same management 
and good keeping. 

Another very deliberate recommendation has been 
promulgated from the south to the north of the states for 
conducting many crops of silk; hatching, feeding, and 
spinning during six months of the year, from the 20th of 
April to the 20th of October ! ! wiselv remarking how- 



37 

ever, that the novel plan requires a favourable mild climate, 
for example, that beyond the mountains, near the town of 
St. Charles, on or about the Missouri, latitude 38 N. ! 

It were desirable, and it would save much time and 
trouble to all those who are the most endowed with spe- 
culative and inventive faculties, that they should remember 
of their predecessors or cotemporaries, who, actuated by 
the same impulse and spirit, might have settled the expe- 
riment of many crops of silk in one season, which 
they have recommended. We now can affirm that there 
is not a single silk district in the old world, in France, Italy, 
or elsewhere, but where the above experiment has been 
tried long ago, and given up as visionary, unprofitable, 
and destructive. We have already mentioned the 
attempts made by the French government to introduce 
the culture of silk into the island of Bourbon, precisely 
because vegetation not being interrupted there, crops of 
silk might be repeatedly obtained at each yearly period. 
Sauvage has recorded the gradual, but sad failure of that 
enterprise, which had been solicited by a company of in- 
terested persons, although he or they should have been 
aware that no insect subject to the influence of seasons, 
could be regenerated in the same condition at the command 
of man. How often the same attempt at experiment has 
been made according to historical record, we think it 
useless to relate, as much as it would be to undertake the 
history of human errors. The last instance we have 
heard of, took place ten years ago, in the vicinity of the 
great city of Lyons in France. But we are assured that 
the results were not such as will be boasted of. They 
were indeed as vain as those which Dandolo had noticed 
in Italy, and which being repeated on a great plan at St. 
Charles in Missouri, have given the following product : 



38 

first crop — 131 pounds of cocoons ; second crop — 73 ; 
the third and fourth — too inconsiderable to be mentioned. 
That is, nothing, except about 200 pounds of cocoons, 
which could certainly not exceed one hundred dollars in 
value, for the cost, the trouble, and the wages of many 
attendants on a six months' crop of silk ! 

Leaving aside in this subject any view to sarcasm or 
criticism, it behoves us only to resume our objections to 
the above method, under three different points of view. 

1st. It would be destructive of the best species of the 
caterpillar. 

2d. It could never be accomplished with seasonable 
foliage. 

3d. Its continued and protracted cares through several 
seasons, would be more expensive than any of the calcula- 
ble utility and benefits that silk can afford us. 

1. If naturalists were asked at what period eggs laid 
should or must be hatched, they would first answer, that 
this is regulated by the temperature of the place where 
the parent animal had deposited them, supposing she 
takes no farther care of her eggs. Hence the eggs depo- 
sited or left by the mother-silkworm must be subject to the 
return of a season; and if any exception could be shown to 
the contrary, it would after all prove an abortive one ; the 
offspring will be imperfect and degenerated ; repeated 
hatchings, therefore, of the same insect obtained before 
its natural term of existence, must by a few reproduc- 
tions, induce its degenerac} r or destruction. 

2. In the second view, experience has shown us that the 
life of the insect the better secures its product, when it 
is simultaneous with the only foliage it can feed on dur- 
ing the four stages which it passes through and marks by 
the renewal and the growth of its body. But this order or 



39 

law of nature would be inverted in the mode of artifi- 
cial crops of silk ; and the fodder offered to it, be always 
more or less unsuitable to its strength or to its wants. 

3. The shortness of time, of labour, and cares required 
for obtaining a crop of silk, constitutes and enhances its 
value above other necessary articles to clothe the human 
body ; but this precious material could no longer com- 
mand the price which notwithstanding the decrease of 
its quantity or quality, would be called for by the pro- 
tracted expenditure of time, of labour, and of industry. 

We must dismiss the further task of criticism of the 
many errors and systematic modes and means which neither 
the experience of ages, nor the laws of nature can justify 
for the promotion of the culture of silk ; which might also 
create more expensive and discouraging results among 
our industrious classes than they would have time to cor- 
rect, before they could have recovered their losses or 
acquired useful instruction.* 



* The business of the silk grower, like every other, requires appren- 
ticeship or sufficient instruction, or else it will prove vexatious and in many 
respects very expensive. If one only out of many rules, cares, or subjects of 
attention is omitted or neglected, your attempt in the undertaking will fall 
through. Such a result we once have witnessed, and so remarkable as 
here to claim our attention. 

A rich Lord or Seigneur in the Cevennes, who had spent his days and 
pretty much worn out his taste among fashionable city pleasures, and in 
nobleman's sports of horse and chariot-racing ; having little or no inclina- 
tion to the allurements of honour or fame, that might be offered by the army 
or by the King's court, retired to his estate and castle, where he took a 
fancy to agricultural pursuits and improvements : these were wanted, after 
his long and repeated absences. One object more particularly fixed his 
attention, being possessed of an extensive mulberry plantation, conve- 
niently situated, and by the benefit of which, his villagers could every year 
be employed in the way of raising silkworms. He therefore surmised, 
that he could certainly promote the business and could realize the pro tits 



40 



We will atone for the liberty we have taken to find 
fault with many of our cotemporaries, by proving that in 
our survey of their welcome advices and instructions we 



equal to all that they could do themselves. He was not, it is true, provided 
with special buildings for that purpose ; but he could at any time appropriate 
several apartments, halls, and courts in his castle, and for more, he thought, 
than ten ounces of worm seeds. He did, in consequence, order that the furni- 
ture should be packed and removed ; a number of hurdles to be substituted j 
he engaged nurses and attendants, who with his usual household must be 
initiated into the art of magnaniers (silk-culturists), and under the auspices 
of a favourable spring and vegetation, he confidently commenced the 
hatching, expecting to raise a crop of at least five or six thousand francs. 

My Lord Viscount was not, however, very familiar with matters of do- 
mestic economy, being habituated to many servants by whom he must be 
obeyed. His judgment and understanding could not be aware of any 
difficulty to be encountered in the accomplishment of his desire, since he 
had in his power or at his command all that would be wanted ; and sup- 
posing a difficulty might occur, whether it would be in his power timely to 
remove it, so that it should not be attended with serious consequences, 
was an inference that had not been conceived by this inexperienced noble 
culturist ; and this single defect, this oversight sadly ruined his undertaking; 
and brought on the most disgraceful and signal failure of the crop of which 
he had so much boasted among his friends and neighbours. The error he 
had committed was that of not having estimated nor provided for the space 
necessary to the great quantity of silkworms which he was rearing. No 
doubt he depended upon room enough in his castle, but rooms and halls 
cannot give sufficient space, unless this is provided for by many ranges of 
hurdles, which are multiplied by being placed one over the other. It thus 
would have been necessary for the Viscount to have at least 6000 square 
feet of space upon hurdles for his 400,000 silkworms, instead of which he 
had hardly prepared one half of it in nurseries, rooms, chambers, halls, 
and galleries. 

This error can seldom take place in the ordinary way and practice of 
silk growers, because, unless they have numerous hands to dispose of and 
large houses, they do not engage for more than one or two ounces of seed, 
which would not require much more than five hundred square feet of space 
or the double. In the present case the error became fatal. One part o c 



41 

did not always find fault. With the greatest pleasure we 
read, long ago, in the New-England Journal, Nov. 17, 
1826, the narrative of the Rev. Samuel Wood of Boscaw- 
en, of his long and continued practice of rearing silk- 
worms, regretting that he should have always experi- 
mented on a small scale, with the same brood and with a 
single tree which he had planted himself : also, that his 
caterpillar family were of the tri-moulting species ; one 
of a shorter life, labour, and diminished product, although 
good in quality. We have admired all his practical ways 
and industry, dictated by patient but philosophical obser- 
vation, as far as he trusted to that supreme power which 
takes care of all animated matter. He therefore happened 
always to be successful, and somewhat rewarded by some 
profit. Of him it might be said, that had not the art of 
silk culture been discovered, he could start a claim to the 
discovery. 



the apartments being incumbered with the furniture of the others, it 
could not be readily cleared for the growing insects : these remained too 
long crowded upon each other, buried in their litters, in which an unavoid- 
able moisture caused a putrid fermentation. In their present age the ser- 
vice of meals, &c being required every four hours, the attendants could 
not discharge any farther labour, and the whole brood suffered so conside- 
rably by excessive heat, by spoiled or tangled litters, that they sickened 
and died by thousands every hour : thus the peril of pestilence rapidly 
augmented, until the good villagers consented to take away as many silk- 
worms as yet were sound from the middle of it, being allowed to keep 
them for their trouble, in their respective houses, and these only lived to 
spin their silk. Thus the lord of the castle lost all his crops and much 
more than he had contemplated to obtain from an immense crop of silk, a 
small part of which only was of service to any one. This event taking place in 
a populous silk district, could not fail exciting much curiosity, and brought 
so many people to the castle that the confused nobleman was obliged to 
relieve himself by an unexpected absence from it, leaving behind a good 
practical lesson to whoever undertakes what he is not qualified to accom- 
plish. 

VOL. I. 6 



42 

A similar comprehensive knowledge of the art we have 
admired in the luminous and well-written analysis made 
of it, by the author of the American Gardener, from page 
268 to 281. We would advise all the readers of the 
editor to take the production itself as a test of the merits 
of many published methods of raising silkworms, to dis- 
criminate between this and all others, and to decide whe- 
ther we have been correct in our impressions,*when induced 
to declare that there is generally a great want of proper 
instruction and of requisite estimation of the culture of 
silk, for its introduction in these states. 

Be it as it may, it is an imitative task, in which the per- 
sistent laws of nature must be taken for our guide, and 
be peculiarly adapted to localities ; a study demanding a 
taste or a tact of observation, rather than the speculative 
perceptions of talent and genius, and above all, it requires 
all possible assistance from patriotism and philanthropy. 



A TREATISE 



ON THE 



CULTURE OF THE MULBERRY TREE 



ITS VARIETIES AND MODES OF CULTURE. 



The Mulberry plant is the prime source of the rich 
product of silk ; it must therefore be abundantly provided 
for and kept thrifty on the ground of silk growers. Be- 
yond that important object and use, it is highly useful : 
its foliage is an excellent fodder for small cattle ; its fruit 
notunfrequently sought for in market, and in fattening poul- 
try ; and the mulberry wood, not inferior to the locust for 
fences, is good enough for plain furniture, and is unexcep- 
tionably an excellent fuel. As a tree, it affords consider- 
able shade in barn-yards, in courts and country places, 
it can easily be shaped into protecting hedges, and every 
where is ornamental. (Vide Michaux, Sauvages, Bona- 
foux, Dandolo, Verri.) 

According to the botanical nomenclature of Linnaeus, 
the genus Mulberry (Morus) belongs to the xxi. class, 
Monoecia, 4th order, Tetrandria. This is 4 stamina 
to one, or many pistils in the same plant. It is not un- 



44 

common to find it however entering in the next class, the 
xxii., DiOECIA, of the sexes separated in different plants. 
This very singular and rare aberration in nature has sug- 
gested to an eminent silk grower of the present time, 
Mons. M. Bonafoux, that it would be expedient to prefer 
and propagate the last species to the first ; because its 
male tree could alone afford better foliage, be free from 
berries which are much troublesome in the litters of the 
silkworms, apt to spoil, and to scatter a corruptible mu- 
cilage. The celebrated Michaux had long before this 
writer recommended the quality of the male mulberry 
wood as superior to the various sorts which already are in 
use. In Jussieu's arrangement of plants, the Morus is 
one of the dicotyledonous class, in the 98th order, Urticae, 
sect. 2. 

There exists in Europe and North America numerous 
varieties of the mulberry, but we never could imagine 
with some writers and eminent botanists, that any one of 
them were exotic or exclusively propagated from Asia or 
China. The last-mentioned author says, that the black 
mulberry alone was used in France when the silkworm 
seeds were introduced there, in the last years of the fif- 
teenth century ; this may be true without proving that 
there was no white mulberry ; for as the French drew 
those seeds from Naples, after the conquest by Charles 
VIII., they imitated the Italian culturists, who then pre- 
ferred the black sort as productive of a stronger or coarser 
silk than the white sort. (Vide Abbe Sauvage.) Against 
some plausible facts from history, giving credit to the 
foreign origin of the white mulberry, we may allege, that 
culturists of all ages and nations would always think it 
necessary to import or procure the plants already in use 
in the places from which they obtained the insect. Thus 



Spain and Italy may have appeared to supply their neigh- 
bours with the sort which they approved the most. Still, 
how could the supposed exotic have become in all those 
countries, distinctly marked by four or five different kinds 
of the white, of the wild, and of several others of the 
genus ? Of so numerous metamorphoses in botany of 
one kind of exotic, we certainly are neither aware nor 
believers. But it is the more inadmissible, that in the 
celebrated royal gardens of Paris and Montpelier, there 
have been long ago genuine individuals of the real Chi- 
nese mulberry, Menus alba sinensis, which differs materi- 
ally from the existing species by the large size and fine- 
ness of its leaves, by its early putting forth and bearing 
cold climates. Not until lately, however, have the public 
authorities thought it expedient to propagate it. 

With respect to North America, the supposed exotic 
nature of the white mulberry is but a surmise and equally 
questionable. The plant was no doubt propagated by 
the mother country in these colonial provinces ; in Virgi- 
nia, Georgia, but not beyond the mountains, in the valley 
of the Mississippi, and in the fertile regions watered by 
that river in Lousiana. We are also informed of the ex- 
istence of the best sorts of that genus, in the state of 
Missouri. Mr. Schoolcraft, the traveller, saw it in the 
forests on the Maumee, 41° of latitude, and discovered 
upon it the silk caterpillar, very voracious of the leaves, 
and which had perfected its silk ball ; the description he 
gives of that insect would challenge the most sceptic en- 
tomologist. (Vide Schoolcraft's Travels in the Valley 
of the Mississippi, p. 79.) The ancient French colonists 
from the river St. Lawrence, along the Mississippi to the 
Atlantic gulf, certainly never busied themselves with 
introducing the mulberry plant into those forests. Other 



46 

species of the same, such as the Morus rubra, the Tine- 
toria, the Papyrifera or Broussonetia, are unquestionably 
indigenous, and by the same reason, the white and the 
black may have been planted by the author of nature in 
the immense forests of this country. With pleasure we 
avail ourselves in this question of the testimony of an ex- 
perienced horticulturist, John Adlum, Esq., of George- 
town, who has seen the native tree in various distant and 
extensive continental latitudes ; who by inspection of the 
soil and circumjacent indications, could not be supposed 
to be at a loss to determine whether the hand of nature or 
that of art had distributed it over this continent. Hi« 
select specimen we have had the pleasure to examine our- 
selves, and to compare, so far as to acknowedge the Morus 
alba Americana. There cannot therefore be any difficulty 
in the farther raising and propagating of the best sorts of 
this plant from the most meridional latitudes of these 
states, up to the highest, even to the 43°, there being 
already large nurseries of it in the 41st, which as is well 
known, differs in temperature from the like in the old 
world, at least by seven degrees ; and let us not be mis- 
taken when we lay great stress on the art of the cultiva- 
tion of that plant ; it is not so much for its growth and 
preservation, for neither is difficult or doubtful ; it is in 
view only of its abundance and productiveness, and for 
maintaining it of the best quality. 

The mulberry can attain a stately and majestic size and 
live nany ages. Several of that rare description had 
been observed and were described sixty years ago, in the 
Cevennes and Languedoc, by Sauvages. He traced 
them by the proprietors of the land to names and families 
descended from officers of the invading army of Charles 
VIII., who having entered Naples in 1500, had introduced 



47 

these plants. Mans. Matt. Bonafoux has lately seen and 
mentioned the same trees. There is therefore sufficient 
testimony that these oldest parents in the vegetable king- 
dom must be 329 years old. 

The stem or trunk is naturally strait, solid, striated, and 
may be made to branch out in any direction with facility 
and symmetry. The bark is a little rough, of a pale brown 
colour in the white, and much darker in the black sort ; 
but can be easily separated or split and preyed upon by 
cattle. The leaves are of a deep green hue, of different 
sizes, obliquely cordate, serrated, expanded, glossy on the 
upper surface, but easily recurved, veiny, juicy, full of 
sap-vessels. Many sorts of this genus vary only by the 
size, by the shade, and by the thickness of the leaves : the 
Broussonetia excepted, or Papyrifera, the leaves of which 
are strong and cloth-like to the touch. 

The fruit or berry is composed of many seeded and 
distinct grains even before maturity, which imparts to 
them a colour, white, red, or pink, and sometimes very 
black. Thisbaccais the receptacle of the female flower, 
which had 4 pistils in a 4-cleft calyx, without corolla. Not 
far from it you may see the male flower as a catkin, 4-cleft 
calyx and 4 erected stamina. Each of the grains com- 
posing the berry contains a juicy pulp with a small gritty 
seed of an imperfect triangular form. The fruit is sweet 
and a little aromatic, and in some sorts highly charged 
with purplish colouring matter. This plant presents early 
buds in the spring ; they are however slow in expanding, 
hence they are more protected against late frosts ; but as 
it is very mucilaginous, the mulberry stands safely enough 
hard winters which would injure grape vines and kill the 
olive tree. 



48 

The mulberry tree grows in abundance in limestone val- 
leys, where a light vegetable mould is occasionally deposit- 
ed, or loam is found ; also in clayish soil, and almost 
wherever it can take root by the help of a little manure or 
loam : its shade is deep, and very convenient around or 
about country houses, in alleys and avenues, which it 
highly ornaments ; it can readily bear two crops of leaves 
during summer if plucked at an early period, or retains 
its foliage until the end of autumn. A plant, the only one 
in nature which, elaborated by the insect that feeds upon 
it, can furnish us so precious, so incorruptible, and so 
unique a substance as silk, could not fail engaging experi- 
mental inquiry and analysis of its component principles 
and properties ; not precisely to satisfy a vain curiosity, 
but to ascertain whatever improvement might be added to 
the culture of the plant itself, and also those analogies 
that might point out other vegetable substances either as 
substitutes, or as of equal value for the same produce. 
Small, indeed, have been the progresses obtained in these 
matters. Two distinct elements seem to predominate in 
the mulberry over all others common to other herbs or 
trees. One is a saccharine matter, and the other a resinous 
substance, which are perfectly united in the leaves ; but 
they are separated in the bark and in the rind, and one of 
them only exists in the fruit. A milky fluid, that can by 
puncture or by incision be made to ooze out in small drops 
from a tender shoot, attests the presence of the resinous 
element, which no doubt is, by the digestive process of 
the insect, transmitted into an organized apparatus, in 
which it is converted into silk ; for in its first age, the little 
caterpillar is seen to be very capable to spin out silk for 
different purposes, until, overloaded with it, it is provided 
bv nature that the whole of it should be left to us. in a state 



49 

of the most admirable perfection. But, alter all, how 
difficult it must be for chemical science to detect what are 
the component parts or elements of the principle constitu- 
ting silk, as received or elicited from the mulberry tree, if 
we compare the two substances in their isolated quantities. 
It must take at least eight ounces in weight of mulberry 
leaves to nourish one single caterpillar, and enable it to 
complete its silk ball, which in result contains no more 
than two grains and a half of pure and perfect silk. Now, 
one grain of that substance, therefore, is extracted by an 
animal process carried on for 30 days, from three thousand 
eight hundred and forty times more inert matter than its 
own bulk and weight, for each grain of silk ! 

The art of cultivation of the mulberry tree embraces 
seven different heads : 

Chap. I. — On Mulberry Nurseries. 

II. — On Mulberry Plantations or Orchards. 
III. — On Cultivation of do. in Plantations. 
IV. — On Diseases of the Mulberry. 
V. — On Mulberry Hedges. 

VI. — Various modes of plucking Mulberry leaves. 
VII. — On Propagating the Mulberry Tree. 

The two leading purposes of the above distribution and 
arrangement are, to obtain the greatest possible quantity 
of mulberry leaves during the proper season for raising 
silkworms ; the other to secure the vigor and the health of 
that insect on which the richness of the crop entirely de- 
pends — both tasks to be accomplished with the least expen- 
diture of time and money. 

We have preferred the most eligible plan for condensing 
the directions which appertain to our subject, being satis- 
fied that one part of them only is necessary and unchange- 
able in any climate or latitude where the plant can grow. 

VOL. i. 7 



.50 

But, to the agriculturist himself the task must ultimately be 
left, of discerning cares, or judging what circumstances 
and practical means are made necessary by the nature 
of their own soil, in the order of seasons, and with their 
adopted modes of tillage. We could not, therefore, select 
a better model than the method of the Count de Verri, of 
Tuscany, in his treatise on the mulberry. We have bor- 
rowed, at least, his arrangement of numerical precepts, 
which we thought must strictly be observed. On the 
other hand, mistrusting not our own knowledge and expe- 
rience, acquired in one of the richest silk districts in 
France, we have attended to such selections and comments 
which we think to be interesting, and may prove useful in 
any part of the world. 



CHAPTER I. 

On Mulberry Nurseries. 

PRECEPT I. 

Gather mulberries when perfectly ripe, and let them be 
macerated in water until they can be easily bruised with 
your hand ; separate the seeds afterwards by washing the 
mixture with several waters, and keep only those that seem 
to be the heaviest in the bottom of the bucket ; after having 
dried them all on a paper or on a clean table, they are fit 
for use. 

This and other processes in relation to a provision of 
seeds, should never be neglected by good culturists, to 
guard against the chance of employing old or poor seeds ; 
— which danger is obvious, unless they can trust to hortr*- 



51 

culturists and gardeners who may follow that business 
with diligence and reputation. 

PRECEPT II. 

You need not to wait for the spring ; the fresher the 
seed, the better, at any season, except in time of extreme 
heat or cold. When clean, free from any animal or vege- 
table substances, and mixed with fine sand, the seed may 
be committed to the ground previously well prepared, 
spaded and broken fine, and clear of weeds. The sow- 
ing is to be made in drills, one inch and a half deep, five 
or six inches asunder, covered and levelled with a small 
hoe or rake. 

These seedlings do not require a rich, manured ground; 
a small quantity of well pulverized mould will, however, 
do good ; ashes or soot should be thrown over, if the soil 
is of a dry and clayish nature. The beds should be so 
disposed as to be conveniently reached by the hand as far 
as the centre, whenever necessary to weed or to thin the 
drills. 

PRECEPT III. 

With good weather your seeds will rise in ten or twelve 
days ; a few weeks after which, make it a rule frequently 
to inspect or examine the beds, that you should timely exe- 
cute what will be required concerning the last mentioned 
weeding and thinning : this is important. These seeds 
are not expected to germinate well, if too close ; they may 
be left apart at two and a half inches, or three ; if the 
ground is dry, water should be sprinkled over the drills ; 
and when the seedlings are well up, a superficial drilling 
would be beneficial. 

It may be remarked, that if the above measures are well 



52 

and diligently attended to, they will enable the culturist to 
apply the ensuing spring to his seedlings the operations of 
the second season, although they might have been put in 
the ground late the year before. This method is therefore 
well calculated to gain time, as it will farther be seen. 

PRECEPT IV. 

Early the ensuing spring an operation of trimming or 
topping is to be performed on every seedling, which is to 
be shortened down to the ground by the means of such a 
sharp and well-edged nipper, as will not shake nor disturb 
the roots. During this season they will soon bud ; but 
you are directed to cut off all lateral buds, and leave but 
the best middle one to profit of the whole sap. This ope- 
ration has also a tendency to strengthen and enlarge the 
body of roots, and leaves the stem without lateral shoots 
that might diminish the principal one. 

PRECEPT V- 

During the first and second year it is necessary to keep 
the beds of seedlings in the best possible condition, by 
hoeing, weeding, and even by watering if necessary. An 
attentive culturist is the best judge of thinning the seed- 
lings ; in some beds they may require to be at a greater 
distance than in others. The loss of one, or many, is 
always repaid by the thriving condition of the others. 

PRECEPT VI. 

In the second spring, having pruned your seedlings 
as low as a few inches from the ground, and on a dry 
morning, you will graft every one of them which is an inch 
thick, or thereabout. The smaller and weaker may be 
\&h for the ensuing spring. In the meantime, it should be 



53 

topped, and lateral shoots lopped off, in the same mode as 
it has been done before. 

It is universally agreed that the pipe-grafting is the best 
for the mulberry kind ; no controversy have we ever heard 
on that point. This mode, well known to horticulturists 
and gardeners, requires a selection of the best grafting 
branches, in good condition, and, as far as may be judged, 
of leaves which are similar in size and shape to those of 
your seedlings. The grafting also must not fail, and so 
expose the plant to a delay of some consequence ; although 
it might be repeated at the end of summer, and when the 
heat of the season declines : it should therefore be done 
by intelligent, careful, and practical persons. In case of 
failure it is always supposed to be the fault of the opera- 
tor. Count de Verri says that this seldom happens, if the 
grafts are fresh enough, if they are entailed on a good dry 
day, and carefully luted with gardeners' wax. 

We should not let the present opportunity pass without 
particularly adverting to the importance of the grafting 
process as applicable to the mulberry tree, and which has 
been so universally recommended by the culturists of all 
nations, for more than one hundred years of experience 
and practice, up to this day. Not a few systematic com- 
pilers may still wonder why it should be so much insisted 
upon, since the process seems not to alter or improve any 
characteristic quality of the fruit, or any part of the tree ; 
while the off-givings of the same, the seedlings, the layers, 
the cuttings, &ic. all enter again into the class of the wild 
sorts, if not grafted. After all this is said, and with truth, 
indeed, it is nevertheless still demonstrable, that the grafted 
mulberry always vegetates more thriftily, and more pro- 
fusely supplies us with its foliage ; and with that argument 
alone, the controversy should be put at rest. 



54 

We would remark here, that the compilers of the Docu- 
ment No. 158, published by order of government, which 
contains so much useful matter in relation to the culture of 
silk, should have not noticed the result of the experiments 
by Dandolo on the greater quantity of silk given by worms 
fed on the wild mulberry, and more than by the grafted 
seedling, unless they mentioned his concluding advice on 
the subject : 

1st. That there are too many bad species of the wild 
mulberry, and which are thorny, and bear but a small 
quantity of leaves. — (p. 262.) 

2d. That they all should be grafted to be corrected, 
Sic— (p. 263.) 

3d. That the grafted tree gives a greater quantity of 
leaves than the wild. — (ib.) 

4th. That the quantity of cocoons depends principally 
on the quantity of leaves. — (264.) 

5th. That before we should give up the grafted for the 
wild tree, we should have a vast many more experiments 
made, to compare and decide the result.— (265) — he. 

There will be, for some time, a difficulty in the United 
States to enforce the practice of grafting, owing to the 
scarcity of procuring grafting branches ; there not being 
a sufficient number of those plants in the few districts 
where the worms are raised, and an absolute want or 
scarcity of them every where else. But let the demands 
be proportionate to the business, and our intelligent horti- 
culturists will soon find the way of providing us sufficiently 
with as good grafts as abundant silk districts can afford* 

PRECEPT VII. 

On the third spring, our seedlings should be fit for trans- 
plantation into the nurseries, raising them carefully, and 



53 

commencing* with those in which the graft appears the best 
and most vigorous. Of every plant, it is well to clip off 
the tap root, leaving only a few fingers' breadth of it, even 
should there not be enough of the lateral roots. They 
are to be planted at twelve or fifteen inches depth, and in 
quinkunx, at three feet distance from each other, observ- 
ing, after this is done, that the stem or stock, which in this 
new ground has depth enough, must be cut and levelled 
to the ground by the means of a sharp-edged nipper, 
leaving the top as a mark on the spot to guard and pro- 
tect the little trunk, whenever weeding and spading are 
afterwards to be attended to. 

It is here suggested as an exception to the above rule, 
that if in the third spring, which is the second of the exis- 
tence of the nursery, an engrafted seedling appears very 
vigorous, instead of being topped to the ground, as it was 
done when transplanted from the seedling-bed, it should 
only be pruned above its division into branches, leaving 
to it but two or three buds to for,m anew the same, in order 
that at an early and convenient time it may be trans- 
planted to form a standard tree. Count Verri, attentive 
to every possible method of rapidly rearing young trees, 
mentions having frequently and successfully tried that ex- 
periment, and formed, in two years and three months, trees 
from the seed which measured thirteen inches in circum- 
ference, and required nothing farther than to be secured 
against accidental violence by being fastened to a post 
with ozier, or any other proper fastenings. 

PRECEPT VIII. 

The site and vegetative quality of the ground in a nur- 
sery, are matters of great moment, inasmuch as the mul- 
berry seedlings are to owe to them all the vigor, perfec- 



56 

lion, and regular form desired. A sloping southerly, 
sheltered but not shaded exposure, is therefore the best, 
being also of a dimension rather long than broad, and 
not of a gravelly and stony bottom, that might impede or 
divert the direction of the roots. As for the soil being 
rich, which is not in general requisite for our tree, it is to 
a certain degree admissible in a nursery, more than in the 
place where it must ultimately be transplanted. It is par- 
ticularly enjoined that no fresh barn-yard or stable ma- 
nure should be used, but only the detritus of vegetable 
subtances, such as the mould of forests, and what is still 
better, the parings and cuttings of skins from curriers' and 
shoemakers' shops, or other branches of like business. 
However singular it may appear, this specific manure for 
the mulberry is, in silk countries, a valuable article, and 
sells by the weight for nurseries as well as for plantations ; 
and it is not at all out of reason and judgment that it 
should be so, when the nature is considered of the pre- 
cious substance which is obtained from this agricultural 
provision — that is, an animal substance, which, like the ar- 
ticles mentioned, is truly imputrescible. The young trees 
in a nursery are to be planted, we have said, in the order 
of quinkunx, at three feet distance for each square of four 
trees, which of course leaves room enough for necessary 
visits, inspection, and the labors of tillage. We would, 
however, advise those who can spare ground enough, to 
have a path allowed between each quinkunx — that is, be- 
tween each three lines, as herein exhibited, and to keep 
the ground always as much untrodden as possible. 



5*7 
50 or 60 feet Nursery. 



O 

o 



Intermediary Path. 



PRECEPT IX. 

The period of time on which we are now engaged, will 
probably be the last nursery-year for your saplings, par- 
ticularly to regulate their future shape and the distribution 
of their principal branches ; also of the secondary and ter- 
nary offsets. You will have, therefore, to be diligently 
attentive to the lopping, in proper season, of the super- 
fluous buds, and to the removal of sprouts or shoots be- 
tween the leaves. You will be mindful of the size and 
form you are to give to your tree, high or low ; the one 
if the shade should prove obnoxious to any adjacent plant, 
and the latter for a ground where it is not intended to raise 
any thing else. No bad effect is to be apprehended from 
any curtailment or trimming whatever, which it is neces- 
sary to perform. This tree, which with care will outlive 
whole yearly pluckings of foliage, can of course bear, at 
present, any necessary correction. 



5$ 



CHAPTER II. 

On Mulberry Plantations or Orchards. 

By mulberry plantations or orchards is meant any place 
or piece of ground that is the most convenient for use. 
and where the young tree is permanently fixed. It would, 
therefore, be useless to set apart a large parcel, except h 
be very convenient for proprietors to do so, and to have it 
exclusively planted with mulberry trees. The produce ot" 
this branch of agricultural industry is not like any other, 
that might be transported to, and sold at a distant market : 
far from it. Its worth and good quality in a great mea- 
sure depend on its freshness, and it must be consumed in 
the vicinity. Besides, there are frequent calls which occur 
during the conducting of great nurseries, which require 
immediate and abundant supplies. The appropriation of 
ground should not, therefore, be made beyond the propor- 
tion of a settled neighborhood, and what must be engaged 
for the annual industry of raising silkworms. 

Very few families are able to undertake the task of mana- 
ging more than one ounce of seeds, that is, about forty 
thousand worms, which may give one hundred and fift3< 
pounds of cocoons, or from ten to twelve pounds of silk. 
An orchard or a farm that is in want of mulberry trees 
enough for five ounces, which will require nearly seven 
thousand pounds of fodder, should contain about one 
hundred trees, good or feeble, large or small. These 
raav be distributed in alleys and avenues, in hedgv- 



59 

rows, around gardens, in barn-yards, or courts, where 
the benefit of their shade would no doubt be desirable. 
Wherever they may be planted, the following precepts 
are to be attended to. 

PRECEPT X. 

The pits for setting out should be prepared and always 
left open beforehand, in order to fertilize the soil by the 
airing or contact of the ambient atmosphere, which, as is 
very properly supposed, has its share of influence upon 
the vegetative property of such layers or strata of earth 
as have thus been mellowed. It is in this view, also, 
that a judicious horticulturist will take care to set apart 
the upper and best vegetable earth, to reverse it on the 
roots of the sappling. Great stress is laid, besides, on 
the dimension of the holes for permanent trees — to be, at 
least, six feet square and three in depth ; in the bottom of 
each, a few pounds of parings of skins and leather are to 
be mixed with earth, as the best manure, 

PRECEPT XI. 

In raising the young tree from the nursery, attention 
and care of the roots is commendable, avoiding useless vio- 
lence and mutilation in disentangling them, except when 
they are of great length. These are to be clipped off 
when injured, and left free of superfluous appendages, 
and disposed in their natural direction, which will not fail 
affording again a vigorous progress to a new set of rooK 
insuring the long existence of the tree. 

PRECEPT XII. 

Props or supports to young trees having been provi- 
ded, they are consolidated at a proper depth, and above 



.,v; 



CHAPTER II. 
On Mulberry Plantations or Orchards. 

By mulberry plantations or orchards is meant any place 
or pieee of ground that is the most convenient for use. 
and where the young tree is permanently fixed. It would, 
therefore, be useless to set apart a large parcel, except it 
be very convenient for proprietors to do so, and to have it 
exclusively planted with mulberry trees. The produce of 
this branch of agricultural industry is not like any other, 
that might be transported to, and sold at a distant market : 
far from it. Its worth and good quality in a great mea- 
sure depend on its freshness, and it must be consumed in 
the vicinity. Besides, there are frequent calls which occur 
during the conducting of great nurseries, which require 
immediate and abundant supplies. The appropriation of 
ground should not, therefore, be made beyond the propor- 
tion of a settled neighborhood, and what must be engaged 
for the annual industry of raising silkworms. 

Very few families are able to undertake the task of mana- 
ging more than one ounce of seeds, that is, about forty 
thousand worms, which may give one hundred and fifty 
pounds of cocoons, or from ten to twelve pounds of silk. 
An orchard or a farm that is in want of mulberry trees 
enough for five ounces, which will require nearly seven 
thousand pounds of fodder, should contain about one 
hundred trees, good or feeble, large or small. The?r 
mav be distributed in allevs and avenues, in bedffe- 



59 

rows, around gardens, in barn-yards, or courts, where 
the benefit of their shade would no doubt be desirable. 
Wherever they may be planted, the following precepts 
m*e to be attended to. 

PRECEPT X. 

The pits for setting out should be prepared and always 
left open beforehand, in order to fertilize the soil by the 
airing or contact of the ambient atmosphere, which, as is 
very properly supposed, has its share of influence upon 
the vegetative property of such layers or strata of earth 
as have thus been mellowed. It is in this view, also, 
that a judicious horticulturist will take care to set apart 
the upper and best vegetable earth, to reverse it on the 
roots of the sappling. Great stress is laid, besides, on 
the dimension of the holes for permanent trees — to be, at 
least, six feet square and three in depth ; in the bottom of 
each, a few pounds of parings of skins and leather are to 
be mixed with earth, as the best manure, 

PRECEPT XI. 

In raising the young tree from the nursery, attention 
and care of the roots is commendable, avoiding useless vio- 
lence and mutilation in disentangling them, except when 
they are of great length. These are to be clipped off 
when injured, and left free of superfluous appendages, 
and disposed in their natural direction, which will not fail 
affording again a vigorous progress to a new set of roots. 
insuring the long existence of the tree. 

PRECEPT XII. 

Props or supports to young trees having been provi- 
ded, they are consolidated at a proper depth, and above 



llie roots ; each tree may be fastened to the props with wil- 
low withes, and thus resist the casual accidents or storms 
until strengthened by age and by growth. The holes in 
light, dry, sandy, or gravelly ground, require a greater 
depth by eight or ten inches, than in strong, loamy, or 
clayey soil, which will command more care and attention 
when ploughing or spading shall be required. 

PRECEPT XIII. 

The trimming or pruning of the young tree is limited 
to that of its main branches, which are left eight or ten 
inches long, each with three or four outward buds in the 
most diverging points ; and whatever wound has been in- 
flicted on the branches, is to be dressed with gardeners' 
wax. 

The best tree for a culturist is always that which is 
raised from his own nursery ; however, necessity may fre- 
quently oblige him to purchase from others. Beforehand, 
therefore, keep up your nursery in good order, activity 
and operation, and you will always enjoy and possess 
some fine trees at command. It was a very true saying 
of the wise Cato, that a diligent farmer has always much 
for sale, and nothing to buy. This rule is urgent, and 
still more imperative for a stock of seeds, plants, and 
above all, grafted mulberry saplings, which are very rare 
in the very heart of silk countries. These are objects 
which always demand such trouble, care and attention, as 
is rarely bestowed merely for market price, but for self- 
gratification and pride, in the able disposal of judgment* 
skill and diligence, in agricultural pursuits. 



CHAPTER III. 

On care and Tillage of the Mulberry Tree in Plantations, 

Whatever cares and rules are required for the growth, 
preservation, and thriftiness of this plant, may be referred 
to two different periods or stages : the first should relate 
to the young age of the tree, during four years, and the 
latter to the adult age, for about twenty or twenty-five 
years ; for a tree which has been every year in use, and 
stripped of its foliage as often as silk-growers who are 
provided with nurseries in constant operation would do, 
is not longer much to be depended upon, unless it com- 
mands frequent attention and labor for tillage, which may 
as well be given to saplings. 

It is never too late, therefore, to give a young tree the 
same observation as we would to the physical education of 
a young body ushered in the scene of existence with, 
it is hoped, healthy organs, sound limbs and regular form, 
in order that it be invigorated or corrected for the differ- 
ent purposes to which it is destined. 

The growth of the mulberry should be proportioned to 
its ordinary use ; and whilst it shows vigor and strength, 
we must point out the best direction to all its accessory 
ramifications in a regularly diverging line, but never per- 
pendicular. It is observed that thereby the tree keeps 
well opened in its centre, and admits the best distribution 
of air and sunshine. All these intentions are obtained by 
a judicious curtailing and pruning of shoots, lopping off 



(52 

I 

buds, and carefully comparing the directions of all those 
that are or should be preserved. In the second year, or 
spring, it will be proper to open the ground over the roots ; 
examine whether there is any superfluous shoots from the 
trunk to be torn up, along with exuberant scions, leaving 
none of the latter but in open spaces, or reducing them to 
a small number of buds. None of these operations should, 
however, be performed in wet weather, or before having 
plucked leaves, which may be called for in proper time. 

The silk-grower, indeed, is impatient, perhaps, for some 
remuneration of his labors, which probably he may now 
boldly exact, with only this restriction for the first time, 
that no pruning or trimming of young trees should be 
made, until silkworms are hatched, and all the young leaves 
gathered that are wanted ; but if the delay to that purpose 
was too long, or late during the warm season, the pruning- 
knife should not be used until another season ; but delay- 
pruning until the worms are hatched, so that you could 
at least use the tender foliage of as many branches as you 
will think proper to correct or to take off. It is therefore 
presumed, that as far as it is possible, the use of the knife, 
so necessary to invigorate young trees, should not often 
be set aside for the sake of an inconsiderable crop 
of the foliage. The ground underneath should always 
be ploughed or spaded up in the autumn, and no artificial 
sod of clover, lucerne, and other grass, be suffered to grow 
about ; although these and many leguminous plants may 
be dug up and turned under, as simple and vegetable 
manure. 

The precepts most important and necessary for the safe 
keeping and management of mulberry trees, in adult age, 
are relative to yearly pruning, and to certain modes and 
precautions in plucking their leaves. 



ti3 

Yearly primings, if observed without judgment and 
necessity, are pernicious ; they load the tree with wounds 
and scars, weaken it, and diminish the quantity of foliage 
expected from it. On the other hand, if neglected when 
required, the produce is variously impaired ; the leaves 
are small, and poor in substance. The middle course 
only, that is, a timely and judicious pruning, is useful and 
profitable. 

First, then, take all branches that are dead, or which 
have been accidentally injured : 

2d. And those which remain feeble in vegetation, and 
scanty in leaves. 

3d. If a branch appears too much loaded with foliage, 
and bent by the weight, it should of course be allayed, or 
turned up in a different direction, to diminish the sap. 

4th. Curtail those which diverge too much on the top 
of the tree ; those, also, that are too pendulous and low. 

5th. Oppose any unsightly elevation or horizontal pro- 
jection. 

6th. And restore the branches to a natural direction 
which have been strained by the gatherer. 

7th. Pruning also must have a tendency to preserve 
the strength of inferior branches, by checking superior 
ones. 

8th. Pruning is required of such parts as show symptoms 
of decay, by dryness, discoloration, and premature fall of 
leaves ; from such no plucking should be allowed. The 
aggravation of such symptoms might authorise the loss of 
one or more limbs, but the topping of a mulberry tree is 
a desperate remedy, seldom successful, and but poorly 
supplying lingering life. In such state of certain decay, 
it is better to dig and search at the root, to cut off any one 
ihat is damaged, and renew the ^oil with orood earth and 



64 

mould, with the parings of skins and leather. In fine> 
any considerable cutting or operation, as above described, 
is not to be performed but in the fall of the year. As for 
the gathering of the leaves in relation to the preservation 
of the tree, it should be carried on from day to day, with 
no considerable interruption of time. A tree should not 
be left partially bare or plucked, thus exposed to an im- 
paired state of circulation or transportation of the sap 
from one part of the plant to the other ; and the sooner it 
is stripped, the better it will prepare for another crop, or 
rest completely if the season is advanced. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Diseases of the Mulberry Tree. 

Of these we have not a long list to enumerate, but cne 
of them is very fatal, and has been observed epidemically 
ruinous to plantations. The following literal translation 
of a case and cure of that kind, by the Count de Verri, 
will at once indicate the nature, the danger, and the treat- 
ment ; observing, however, at the same time, that on the 
authority of Sauvage, the same disease may originate from 
carious or gangrenous spots at the extremities of branches, 
instead of being only confined to the root, as in the fol- 
lowing instance : 

" A mulberry which I had planted and taken care of 
during twenty years, offered all at once alarming symp- 
toms ; the leaves grew small, and the greater part of them 
withered ; others were yellow, and dropped off long before 
the autumnal period. There appearing not any local 



65 

defect, I ordered the ground to be opened and the roots 
to be searched ; I found that a few had been gnawed by 
moles, and others were diseased. I had them all taken 
off; I renewed the earth, mixed it with manure, and cur- 
tailed, a little, the sound ones. But this was not all. I 
had all the branches pruned off except the principal, which 
was shortened only ; and in some parts of the discolored 
trunk, I made, with a very sharp knife, several deep, longi- 
tudinal incisions, from which a thick fluid oozed out, which 
thickened, and was carefully scraped. I believe this pro- 
cess saved the tree from gangrenous ulcers, which would 
have subsequently formed. All this was done in the 
month of September. The ensuing year still the tree 
kept in a hopeful condition, although very weak ; but in 
the next it perfectly recovered its vigor and luxuriant 
vegetation. The same mode I have successfully pursued 
with other individuals ; my neighbors being advised by 
me, have experienced the same success." — Verri, p. 81. 
It is unfortunately but too true, that if in a row of fine 
trees, one alone is thus attacked, the next one will soon 
follow, show the same disease, and die ; in which case, 
having raised from the ground the first, it will be ne- 
cessary to open a large and deep ditch between that and 
the next trees (to intercept contagion!) and all the rest 
will be preserved." 

The narrator of this interesting monography absolutely 
declines giving any theory as to the cause of that truly 
pestilential disease. Nor has the Abbe Sauvage in- 
structed us further, except by relating an opinion pre- 
vailing in his time, that it originated from the quick- 
silver in the earth. (Vol. 12. p. 123.) How that metal 
could be found there or any where else ; how it could be 
disengaged at so low a temperature as that of the ground, 

9 



66 

we are not toid, nor can we further conjecture. Were we 
lo venture an opinion on such a scourge of a precious 
tree, we would place the cause by analogy in the frequent 
condition of plethora from the sap, in which a plant must be 
found, when, in every season of a vigorous vegetation, the 
foliage is plucked off which would employ the present fluid. 
Every year the danger is the same, which by favorable cir- 
cumstances may be thwarted, and at last it breaks out 
among several or many individuals. Hence the opinion 
has prevailed that the disease is contagious. A good 
practice, generally established in agriculture, has perhaps 
contributed to this notion ; it is one of which all plants 
require the application ; that is, to substitute different 
plants to those which die or are taken away from the 
spot, in order to change and compose the soil in some dif- 
ferent mode and with new elements. 

A frequent cause of diseases of the mulberry, is the ob- 
struction or interruption of sap under the bark, on the 
liber and auhier. This takes place in consequence of 
deadened buds and shoots, or wounds and hardened sap ; 
and for want, also, of a right distribution of subsidiary 
twigs. Hence the precept which has been so often re- 
peated, frequently to use the pruning knife by slanting- 
cuts which should not retain water, and to cover the wounds 
with some gardeners' wax. In general, uneven bark, 
hollows or accidental excrescences, moss, lichens, or any 
adhering matter, should be scraped off. 

Of the vermin which occasionally might infest our 
trees, we have not much to say, because this evil is so 
much prevented by ordinary tillage and use, that very sel- 
dom generations or metamorphoses of them have time to 
be created. Bonafoux speaks of only two sorts, the lamia 
curculio, and the lamia lugubris, the grubs of which 



67 



settle themselves beneath the bark and the ligneous sub- 
stance, and. which ought to be carefully removed or de- 
stroyed. 



CHAPTER V. 

On Mulberry Hedges. 

In order to enhance the importance of mulberry hedges, 
some European culturists complain bitterly of a great va- 
riety of another kind of barrier being interposed by farmers 
in their fields, which occupies a valuable ground, dimin- 
ishes all kinds of crops, and infests them with insects, in- 
stead of mulberry hedges, which in every respect would be 
more ornamental and useful. These remarks, however, 
would not apply to us in America, where lands are not spa- 
ringly apportioned to the farmers. As for insects, they are 
generated by all plants, every where. They attract birds ; 
man will kill or catch birds, and bring them to market. 
The fact is, that upon a few considerations only, mulberry 
hedges are useful and should be provided. The one is, 
that their vegetation being much earlier than that of trees, 
they will always supply the silk-grower with a stock of 
tender leaves for the silkworm, as soon as it is hatched, 
and which are not unfrequently untimely deprived of food 
by the recurrence of a long late frost. Mulberry hedges 
also are a kind of a nursery, abundantly concurring to 
the propagation of the plant by suckers, shoots, layers, 
and grafting branches. In other respects, they are a 
cause of much annoyance, of considerable depredation by 
cattle, and by poultry, and by children, on the search for 
leaves and for berries. 



6S 

For the formation of a mulberry hedge, prepare and 
open a strait furrow, plant grafted seedlings of one year 
about eighteen inches apart from each other. At some dis- 
tance from each, plant also another two years' seedling, 
already cut down for another and better stem. Lop the 
youngest five or six inches from the ground, leaving to it 
two buds only, in opposite directions, each facing the next 
plant. The ensuing spring there will be two branches 
from the main stem, one of which you will shorten to the 
length of one foot, and so for each plant in the hedge, and 
on the same side, in order that one entire should face one 
short, on which the other shall be bent and fastened by 
willow withes. The long one, which should not be 
pruned off, is now horizontal and parallel to the ground, 
and will have next season furnished enough of perpendicu- 
lar shoots, which are not further trimmed afterwards, nor 
plucked, but according to the height of the hedge, which 
in actual progress may be of about two feet. It will ob- 
viously be thrifty and solid, transversely by the curved 
branches, perpendicularly by the strait associate seedlings, 
which will moreover abundantly furnish shoots and layers 
for the nursery. 



69 



CHAPTER VI. 

Of the mode of Plucking Mulberry Learns. 

Rules and cautions concerning the gathering of mul- 
berry leaves, have been dictated by long experience in silk 
countries, with the view of causing as little injury as pos- 
sible to the plant, of preserving it in good condition and 
proper vigor, so as to satisfy the voracity of our precious 
insect. 

Again : when the tree is entirely stripped of its leaves, 
it is of course deprived of the organs which, in contact 
with the atmosphere, absorb from it certain necessary ele- 
ments, or give out in succession those that are become 
superfluous. However unhealthy the tree may remain, 
this operation does not kill it ; nay, it can probably suffer 
a similar and complete mutilation. This latter expres- 
sion, indeed, will not appear exaggerated when it is con- 
sidered that there is a great difference between a crop of 
the fruit or seeds of a plant, and that of the leaves. The 
first soon or late must drop off, while these last are organs 
and parts necessary during vegetative life. Is it, then, 
surprising that so many cares and precepts, so many rules, 
and so much art, should be required in the management 
of mulberry trees ? 

Attentive culturists have felt themselves placed in a 
dilemma which to this day has not yet been resolved. 
They must either regulate their yearly growth of silk and 



70 

the number of their trees in such a proportion as to alter- 
nate one year of rest to every tree once at least every 
fourth or fifth year, or they will force the power of vege- 
tation to a somewhat limited duration of it, say of ten 
years ; at which period, the beds of seedlings and the 
nursery of young trees must be in readiness, and concur 
to a successive renewal of the plantation. 

Both systems are carried on by an equal number of sup- 
porters in silk countries. Which is the wisest, or who cal- 
culates the best, cannot well be told ; but the following cau- 
tions are at least indispensable, and pressingly recommend- 
ed to all silk-growers : 

1st. Gathering mulberry leaves is to be carried on from 
day to day, for the quantity that is required ; one tree after 
the other in succession should be plucked, thereby avoid- 
ing to make .any unnecessary interruption of the plucking 
for several days, or to leave behind any great proportion 
of the foliage, should it be even uncalled for by the worms, 
in which case it is used for cattle, for manure, &e. It is 
less injurious to have trees entirely bare, whether the sea- 
son permits a new crop or not, than to expose the ascent 
of the sap in parts naked, whilst others, still loaded, can- 
not admit it. This effect or disturbance of natural action 
in the plant, cannot fail being highly injurious to it. 

2d. Begin to gather leaves in the morning when the dew 
is dried, and cease before sunset. 

3d. The youngest trees to be plucked the first, and the 
others in succession : thus the first have a better chance 
for a new growth, and the fodder of the others is more 
suitable to the worms in their progress and advanced ages. 

4th. A well exercised hand grasps at the lower end of 
the branches, shoots and twigs, and runs up to the top, 
pulling all leaves at the same time, and avoiding an in- 



verted force and direction, that might pull off the eyes, 
and break and mutilate many parts. 

5th. It is never proper to climb upon a tree which is 
neither strong enough by age nor by nature. Young 
persons, much lighter in body than adult gatherers, might 
sometimes do it ; but their motions are more injurious 
than their weight. Use, therefore, the double wheelbar- 
row, as designated in the plate subjoined. 

6th. Have a sizeable bag, kept open by the means of a 
hoop, appended over the shoulder and under the left arm ; 
when filled, another should be handy. 

7th. The leaves are transportable in bags, boxes, and 
baskets ; but in any way, they should always be kept clean 
and dry, for which you may use some other kind of foliage, 
or any convenient covering or wrapper. 

8th. It is not unfrequent to see mulberry trees much 
soiled in summer with what is called honey-dew. This is 
a phenomenon not yet accounted for ; it results from insects, 
from the plant, or from the clouds, Sauvage, and other 
philosophers, have said much about it. Whatever it may 
be, the honey-dew is poisonous to the silkworm, and leaves 
thus stained should be thrown away. Rusty or partly 
dried leaves can do no harm, because the caterpillar refuses 
them ; if wet by rain, they induce disease, to avoid which 
you will attend to cautions to be shown hereafter. 

9th. Plucked leaves not yet wanted for use, should be 
kept in a cool and dark cellar. Light is the most power- 
ful agent to wither mulberry leaves, which, in such a condi- 
tion, cannot be much relished by the insect. , 

10th. The stems, the berries, are or may be eaten by 
the silkworm when hungry, yet without any bad effect. 
In large nurseries, however, these amount to important 
difficulties and inconveniences, by promoting the fermen- 



72 



tation of the litter, and producing impure air ; they must 
be often removed. Then the leaves require to be picked 
and often chopped, all of which will be duly explained in 
the proper place. 



CHAPTER VII. 

On various modes of Propagating the Mulberry Tree. 

We have already adverted to the advantages which 
accrue to a farm, and to a silk culturist, from a mulberry 
hedge, as a natural source of cuttings, layers and shoots, 
from which the plant can at will be propagated and pre- 
pared for a nursery. He who knows how to manage and 
regulate this kind of produce without going the rounds of 
the usual routine of seedlings and nurseries, and yet can 
reap the benefit of it, not only once, but in a regular suc- 
cession of years, is allowed to boast, and is really in pos- 
session of a perpetual nursery. We are informed that the 
method of provignment, or layering, almost exclusively 
exists in the Veronese district, from long years and habit, 
and is actually in vogue in many parts of France. In a 
provident nation like this, therefore, nothing should pre- 
vent its adoption ; at least an experimental trial, as it fol- 
lows : 

Take from the ground a number of grafted seedlings, 
and set them out in such a juxtaposition as to make it con- 
venient, in succeeding years, to form rows of scions, which 
should not interfere with each other. First top them a 
little above the ground. As soon as they begin to grow, 
attend diligently to pinching off buds, and leaving but 



T3> 

two, opposite each other if possible, on each plant. Next 
spring, and as soon as the sap is up and the new stems are 
flexible, you will bend down the best one, by the centre, to 
the ground, observing to divide with a knife, half of its 
thickness, upon the point from which, both ends, remaining 
out of the ground, form a kind of right angle ; the one 
end adhering to the mother plant, the other free and visi- 
ble. This latter also may be pruned a little, leaving but 
two buds or eyes, one of which is to become an additional 
trunk. In the second year, and when the period has been 
fully completed for the layer to be in the ground, you di- 
vide with a knife half of its thickness on the top of the 
curvature or part where the stem is bent down from the 
mother plant ; it will therefore draw a share of its sup- 
port from the tender roots which it has certainly projected 
below. It is now the proper time for you to layer the se- 
cond shoot which was left last year, the better now if you 
have attended carefully to it, taking off all lateral shoots ; 
it must be treated as you did the first. At the beginning 
of the third year, that is, twenty-four months after the 
shoots have remained in the ground, the process of layer- 
ing is completed by dividing with a sharp instrument from 
the parent stock, one or more of the scions made two years 
before ; these are now young saplings, fit to be transplant- 
ed as from a nursery, for they have all that is requisite — 
roots, trunk, branches and foliage. Yet, for the sake of 
greater strength, they might be left one year or six months 
longer, while you attend alternately to the process of one 
side by layering other stems, or by dividing, or by sepa- 
rating, and obtaining new trees every year, provided there 
is room enough for each plant from which layers are put 
down, leaving space, also, for saplings which should be re- 
tained. 

10 



74 

Those who will apply themselves to this interesting kind 
of perpetual nursery, must be warned that in two circum- 
stances they may want to raise the ground over the layers 
that have been set in ; that is, either to keep them more 
firmly in a proper position, or to cover the original stem to 
prevent new shoots from springing, if it has several scions 
to sustain ; for which purpose it is advisable at each season 
to provide mounds of good earth, from which mould can 
be conveniently procured when required. 

Dwarf Mulberry Tree Plantations. 

This description of trees was formerly in great repute 
in many silk districts of France, on the score of its great 
conveniency for the gathering and plucking, of its early 
budding and putting forth, thrifty and compact foliage, 
&c. Again : dwarf trees require neither so much time 
nor so much tillage before they can be turned to use and 
profit. It was also authoritatively affirmed that this mode 
of rearing the mulberry was prevailing all over Oriental 
India, from the well-grounded belief that its sap was 
of a richer nature, and afforded silk of superior quality. 
Time has, however, much altered opinion and preference, 
and the dwarf sort of mulberry trees are not much in 
vogue at present. Two considerations and objections, 
indeed, have operated against them : — they must be guard- 
ed against depredation by strong hedges or by walls ; and 
the ground to be apportioned for them, if not of better 
quality than for stai rd trees, is so much space to be 
exclusively appropn- ed, that it does not suit those who 
are obliged to cultivate a small portion of land, which 
can produce grape-vines, wheat, or olive trees. There 
are, besides, so many mulberry trees in highways, avenues, 
roads, courts and commons, which eventually can supply 



To 

silk-growers who have no regular orchards for the purpose, 
and agricultural pursuits of other kinds to conduct, that 
a more formal mode of propagating tlje plant is judged 
neither convenient nor necessary. 

We may justly observe, therefore, that as none of the 
circumstances mentioned are applicable to the agricultural 
people of the United States, and much less to their exten- 
sive territories in various climates and latitudes, they 
would or might with propriety apply themselves to any 
mode, perhaps rejected in any other country. In the suc- 
cession of years and experience, who may not see, in this 
new world, all possible modes of cultivating and propa- 
gating the mulberry, whether it be as standards, as hedges, 
as layers, or as dwarfs, each and all according to qualities 
of lands or habits of tillage ? 

It being premised that neither the quantity nor quality of 
foliage is in any way impaired in dwarf-rows, in order 
to set them out, it is an important point to notice that no 
less than two rows, or 4, 6, 8, according to the length of 
the ground, are to be fixed upon, each of them at ten or 
twelve feet distance, and each tree to be separated by six 
feet on the line, which is the half measure of the height 
they may generally reach. This planting is therefore 
similar to forming a nursery with grafted seedlings, with 
the difference, first, that greater dimensions of space are 
desired in this case, and that the plants are not to be re- 
moved. The advantages intended by a nursery, are to 
form large trunks and strong bodies of roots ; in a dwarf 
row it is contemplated to keep the stem low, and sooner pro- 
ductive. The grafted seedlings having been arranged in 
the above order and lines, all operations are set forth 
which, instead of augmenting the size of the stem by top- 
ping and budding, must distribute and equalize its vege- 



76 

tation in all necessary appendages, by keeping the trunk 
only one foot above the ground, and the branches, late- 
rally, no more than two feet, keeping up the usual number 
of two or three main branches, and in such directions as 
will form at last a regular top of about four and a half feet 
in diameter, and with the whole trunk seldom more than 
ten feet. 

In every other respect, the tillage of the dwarf mulberry 
is to be conducted in the same manner as the standard 
tree. By the time three years have elapsed, these trees 
cannot spread their roots much more, as they were planted 
at six feet distance : the culturist, therefore, may well make 
use of the ground for any other plants, biennials or trien- 
nials, which he may wish to cultivate. Dwarf mulberry 
trees require more than any other to be protected against 
depredation, either by walls or by fences, and sooner will 
supply the silk-grower with foliage. 




lu/.m. 



Xit/x-cip-aJ-jtvy <f ' Jjul&rt 



Explanation of the Ladder Wheelbarrow, 

FlG. I.— The ladder-wheelbarrow as a ladder. 

A. A. — Arras or handles of the wheelbarrow, forming a 
rest for the upper half of the ladder. 

FlG. II. — The ladder-wheelbarrow forming a set of steps, 
or double ladder. 

B. B. — Small facings set on the shafts, into which the 
axle is let when the ladder-wheelbarrow is used as a 
barrow. 

FlG. III. — The wheelbarrow. 

FlG. IV. — Slab fitting in on the back of the ladder as a 
shelf, or forming the back of the barrow. 

C. C. — Iron cramps that fasten into hooks on the shafts 
below the slab. 



NATURAL HISTORY 



or 



THE SILKWORM 



BOMBYX MORI. 



This is a species of the numerous tribe of the bombyx, 
or caterpillars existing and seen on a great variety of wild 
and cultivated plants. Linnaeus and Fabricius have paid 
much attention to a long list of them, and there are per- 
haps one hundred and fifty sorts besides, that might call 
for and exercise the observation of entomologists. 

According to the system of classification more gene- 
rally adopted, the silkworm belongs to the lepidoptera, 
from its form in the state of papillo, butterfly or moth — 
that is, having colored and squamous wings ; then again 
it comes under another subdivision of pJialcena, that is, a 
noctuelite, shunning the day, but flying about during 
night. 

The bombyx mart farther takes this specific name from 
the plant which afLrds its food, its silk, and its re-produc- 
tion. When this worm is hatched bv natural or bv artifi- 



78 

cial heat, it issues from a small, round, and flattened shell, 
and is covered with black down ; it is, perhaps, not larger 
than one-twelfth of an inch in length, but is very active, and 
seeks for food. If well fed, it gradually grows, through 
three or four periods, at which it casts off its skin, until it 
becomes three and one- third inches (French measure) long, 
and nearly one inch in circumference. There are a few 
sorts of the same kind of bombyx which are white, grayish, 
yellowish, or spotted, but various in size, and smaller than 
the above dimension, which will be mentioned hereafter. 

This caterpillar is improperly called a worm, for it moves 
in various directions by the means of legs, and its body is 
distinctly composed of eleven membranous rings, which, 
from the lowest to the head, contract against one another, 
always forward, or laterally, by a circular flexion. Those 
rings or muscles are supported by sixteen legs, ten of 
which seem membranous, and six, nearer to the head, 
squamous. The head is rather long, •brownish, having a 
horny covering, and armed with two strong jaws, indented 
like a saw, and between which the food is easily seized ; this 
not being of a more solid texture than a leaf of a tree, gene- 
rally fine or soft, appears to be abraded by the mouth slicing 
a considerable part of it at each repeated motion upon it. 
Under this organ is the apparel through which the cater- 
pillar can at pleasure spin out a clue or thread of silk, 
when wanted to fasten itself, or suspend its body, or for 
casting the skin in moulting-time. As a matter of a 
very minute description, but nevertheless very admirable, 
we must notice that the clue of silk, although fine and 
hardly visible itself, is a double thread, that is issued from 
two lateral ducts, which are united into one, and in this 
main channel the silk, which was in a fluid state, becomes 
solid, is moulded and issued, nevertheless glutinous enough 



19 

to adhere to any surface on which the worm spreads it. 
At different ages the bombyx shows altered forms and co- 
lors ; when grown up, is remarkably wrinkled behind and 
over the head, although perfectly smooth all over other 
parts, and has stigmata, or spots, laterally and regularly 
situated. These are of a dark purplish color, are eigh- 
teen in number^ and are supposed to be the organs of res- 
piration ; after the third age, two other spots, in the 
form of a crescent, are seen in the back. The uniformity 
of these marks altogether, with their connexion to some 
internal vascular apparatus, have induced many observers 
to think that they perform some function necessary to life. 
Can it be by the contact only with the ambient air ? 
Another characteristic organ in the silkworm, and others 
of the bombyx sort, is an erected, fleshy, and somewhat 
pointed process, arising from the middle of the lowest 
ring. Sauvage has thought it to be a kind of tractor of 
the atmospheric electricity. We regret that he who wrote 
at a time when that branch of ethereal philosophy had 
scarcely been defined and experimented upon, could not 
give further developement to his observation. A subse- 
quent writer, the Abbe Rozier, has also touched the subject, 
but he probably misapprehended the application of it upon 
this insect. 

It is not, indeed, in accordance with the laws of nature, 
that a provision made by it should be a cause of disease 
to any being in the creation. In other words, it is not by 
the presence of electricity that danger or diseases should be 
apprehended — it is by the want of it. In the case of the 
silkworm, we have every reason to believe that this ele- 
ment alone is its vital power, and acts more powerfully 
than heat, which is nevertheless necessary for its growth. 
This is unquestionably the truth of the matter, for at all 



80 

times the insect is cold, and at 15 or 20° colder than the 
standing temperature. We will have occasion to resume 
and treat that subject, one of the most important finally 
to regulate the best practical method of art in the growth 
of silk. 

The anatomy of the silk caterpillar illustrates, in every 
point, the animal functions, habits and wants, which, as 
far as we are able, we will endeavor to describe and ex- 
plain. Under this enumeration of parts we include, the 
skin — the intestine — the reservoirs of the silk, and the 
nature of that substance in a fluid or solid state — its lymph 
or blood — and its principal wants in the different stages 
of life. 

1st. The shin may be represented like a double bag, the 
internal duplicature of which has the muscular attributes 
of growth, of expansion, and of some contraction in its 
tendinous rings ; but the external is merely a cuticle which, 
by some distention, and by an interposed fluid from the 
lower skin, is sloughed off at each period of moulting, 
when it splits open in the back and around the neck, is 
left by the silkworm on the spot where it had fastened 
itself by clues, in different directions, of its own .silk. 
This is immediately replaced by the consolidation of a 
gelatinous fluid underneath, but not without great labor 
from the caterpillar, and of time ; twenty-four hours, at 
least, are required for it, which constitute the important 
division of the ages of the worm, and the period of sleep, 
and of liveliness, or fraize, as denominated by the French — 
the completion and regularity of which vouches for the suc- 
cess of a crop of silk. By each of these operations, which 
is generally repeated four times — and three only, with 
another peculiar species of bombyx — the size of the worm is 
increased. This remarkable shedding of the outward skin 



as, besides, so far necessary, that without it, neither the 
growth nor health, of a brood, is to be expected ; and it 
composes one of the most interesting parts of the art of the 
culture of silk, as it comprises a great proportion of the 
practical cares of feeding and of renewing the litters ; 
also, that of uniting all the family, and each division of 
it, in one class of age. Of these we will give, of course, 
a farther explanatory exposition in aid of the silk-grower. 

2d. The skin thus described, contains a few viscera im- 
mersed in a fluid, which, by some has been called lymph, 
and blood by others, although its color is white, or yellow, 
but assumes a dark color when exposed to the contact of 
atmospheric air. It has been difficult to trace its origin 
or formation to any exhalent pores or vessels. Malpighi 
went so far, however, as to point out a certain string or 
series of hearts, from which this humor should circulate 
even with a movement of systole and diastole ! This ap- 
pearance was by no means adventitious, and we will have 
further occasion to define it ; suffice it to say, that in this 
humor all internal parts are kept in an equal pressure and 
temperature. In the centre we see, first, the stomach, or 
intestine, an elongated cavity which, from the mouth to 
the lowest ring of the body, performs both functions. It 
is contracted at its origin, and also at its end, by three 
protuberances, which contribute to the hexagonal form of 
the Jimus at the moment of its expulsion. This diges- 
tive organ contains a gastric juice, for obvious purposes, 
presents no foldings, is strait, or like a rectum, connected at 
its termination, by certain vessels, to the silk bags. 

3d. The silk reservoirs are laterally placed along the 
intestine, two in number ; they have many foldings, much 
like what anatomists call vasa deferentia, so as to be, by 
several inches, longer than the space they occupy. They 

11 



82 

are of a line and transparent texture, each terminating by 
a capillary duct into one and common channel, which con- 
stitutes the spinning apparatus under the mouth. The 
gum or silk which is contained, has a vitreous aspect from 
the white to the yellowish color, in different ages and sorts 
of the bombyx, and somewhat thick, as syrup or jelly. 
A singular property of that animal fluid is, to become 
hard, bright, and permanently insoluble by the contact 
alone of atmospheric air ; if kept in water it retains its 
fluid property, and could, with a proper apparatus, be 
submitted to a spinning process, until again exposed to, 
and hardened by air. 

4th. Another important provision for the organization 
of the silk bombyx, is called the bronchial apparatus, or 
that for the respiration. It is not, however, carried on in 
this insect in any way similar to the import of that word. 
What we see of it is, first, a set of black purplish spots, 
or stigmata, regularly and symmetrically arranged on each 
side of the body, eighteen in number, with two others in 
form of inverted crescents in the back. These are not 
visible until the third or fourth age. It is conjectured that 
through these porous spots or points, the ambient atmos- 
phere has a particular influence on the life of the insect, 
since it is true that its purity and elasticity so greatly con- 
tribute to its health, liveliness and vigor. But the Abbe 
Sauvagesmade a very interesting discovery, clearly to illus- 
trate the nature of this organic function. Having observed 
that the color of the lymph of the silkworm could be 
altered by the contact of air and of water, he opened the 
whole body of a large bombyx, and immersed it in water. 
By this operation not only the lymph was altered, but a 
striking purple color was diffused over all the branching 
vessels which originate from the sticmata, thence extending; 



S3 

their ramification on the intestine in which the functions of 
digestion are performed ; also on the silk bags, completing 
the connection of the whole. He proved thereby what 
must be understood by the act of respiration of our insect 
— truly an ethereal phenomenon, on the subject of which 
we will have many other explanatory remarks to offer for 
the best mode of rearing large broods in litters as well as 
in cabins ; and this experiment was, by reiteration, ren- 
dered sufficiently conclusive. 

Thus far we have spoken of the principal organs and 
anatomy of the silkworm, from which its wants and habits 
can better be defined, and so far promoted as to constitute 
one of the most valuable articles of produce. 

After casting off, for the fourth time, its cuticular skin, 
the silk bombyx continues nine or ten days increasing its 
size, occupies a larger space on its litter, and has become 
very voracious. It devours, indeed, so much of the fodder 
at this period of life, and in so much greater a proportion 
than in the preceding ages, that in view of its further preser- 
vation, it would be hazardous to neglect any of the cares 
and attentions of which it is the principal object. The 
warm temperature of the season need not to be varied ; yet a 
greater mass of pure ambient air in the nurseries is highly 
desirable, and best produced by the use of flame-fires, 
which, without increasing the external heat, replace im- 
mense columns of air. This would soon be rendered mias- 
matic and impure, by so many thousand living animals as 
constitute an ordinary brood of them, each one adding its 
share of animal exhalation : and this effect is the less sur- 
prising, that several thousand of caterpillars at that age, 
collected on their hurdles, produce, by eating only their 
tresh foliage, a very considerable noise, similar to that of 
heavy rain upon the pavement. 

On the thirty-second day of its life, or later, the silk- 



84 

worm appears restless, disdaining food, and for the first 
time impelled by a wandering disposition, which would 
render it difficult to keep the brood in litters, were not a 
sufficient number of branches of brushwood interspersed 
on the edges of the hurdles, on which the older insects 
instinctively climb and mount, to select a spot for their 
retreat. 

The retreat of a worm ! And here let us be permitted 
to admire the unerring skill which searches for space, deter- 
mines upon dimensions, fixes, as it were, cramps or hooks to 
consolidate the first necessary riggings or cordage for an 
enclosure, the oval structure of a ball which, although light 
as air, must be and remain immoveable, before its texture 
can be woven. Indeed, the least oscillation would be 
worse for it than an earthquake to a city. All these bind- 
ings strike our observation, at first, as a cloudy matter 
diffused around the precious cocoon. Such as it is, it 
requires not the strength, but the hand of man at least, to 
tear it asunder. 

This work is accomplished by an insect with the mate- 
rial now only superfluous in the economy of its existence. 
It is the long-sought-for golden fleece which the ancient 
mythologists and poets had drawn from the rays of the 
sun, or which they represented like the gatherings of ethe- 
real elements, deposited on plants cherished by some 
deities in their solitary or enchanted abodes or gardens. 
In fine, it is, in our most appropriate definition, that sub- 
stance called silk, which the happy concurrence of heat, 
electricity, of vegetable and animal life, and of economic 
industry, can man, at will, enrich himself with. 

Having exhausted and spun out all the stock of its ma- 
terials, the caterpillar enclosed in the ball is much reduced 
m size, and altered in its form. Its image, or larva, is 



85 

now chrysalis, and forms a contracted lump of the organs 
and parts which, not long ago, were so necessary for mo- 
tion, for selecting and grinding food, for absorption of 
pure air, and for further protecting its defenceless exis- 
tence. Yet, by the help of the remaining animalized 
lymph in its body, by the contact of atmospheric air which 
is not absolutely intercepted, the whole chrysalis developes 
itself again into an elegantly shaped papillo or moth, as 
perfectly formed as if destined to a long life. It is diffi- 
cult to conceive how this tender lepidoptera could effect 
an aperture through the solid wall of its enclosure, which 
no human ingenuity could unravel without using vio- 
lence. Sauvages has, however, best explained the mys- 
tery. He remarks that the insect drops, first, some fluid 
on the concave spot through which its escape is intended ; 
the tissue is thereby softened ; when, by repeated strokes 
of the head against a small space of it, the innumerable 
windings of the clue are gradually removed from the centre 
to the circumference. Thus it is that the edges of the 
aperture are outwardly reversed, and prove the patient 
labor which has accomplished it without tearing or gnaw- 
ing. In that state, however, the silk ball is of a refuse 
quality, good only for spinning, and not for unwinding. 

The sixth age of the bombyx is now terminated, and 
the seventh commences, being wholly and exclusively ap- 
plied to the habits or wants of self-reproduction. 

It has been already remarked by several entomologists, 
that there were no sexual characteric signs in the silk cater- 
pillar, except in its last metamorphosis or condition of 
papillo ; on which subject we entertain, ourselves, certain 
opinions intimately connected with the methodical princi- 
ples on which we would advise to establish the art of the 
silk-grower. We will, therefore, for a while, run the risk 



86 

of emitting some paradoxical assertions, which can, how- 
ever, be reconciled with very remarkable facts. 

Animal life is so far imperfect or incomplete in the en- 
tomological order of beings, as to be submitted to changes 
of forms and functions necessary for their existence and 
for their regeneration. Without discussing, at present, 
by what means this law of nature is effected among insects, 
let us admit them to be oviparous, as they appear gene- 
rally to be. It is evident that no sexual appendage can 
be attributed to them, unless they have undergone that 
change, or obtained that form in which they really can be 
regenerated, ad infinitum. But that change of form may 
be perfect or imperfect, complete or incomplete. Again : 
all that we can possibly know of animal or vegetable 
germs in nature, supposes and commands the most perfect 
and complete formation of the body, which, by such a 
germ, is to be formed ; the sexual attributes, therefore, 
are the last that can be accessory to an animal, to an 
insect, and to a plant ; and it may frequently be the case, 
that insects and plants have no sexual characteristics, be- 
cause they were imperfectly formed or reared ; and their 
germs are fictitious, not fecundated, as it is said, and the 
race or sort would disappear from the face of the earth, 
was it not better protected or fostered under other hands, 
or by some other chances. 

In no individual of animated nature, can the above 
sketch of natural philosophy be better exemplified than in 
the silk worm. In the seventh age of poor or imperfect 
broods, and badly fed, it would be difficult to ascertain 
the male from the female cocoons, by the usual signs or 
shapes, because there has been no perfect formation of sex ; 
the seeds deposited were in too great proportion of a barren 
sort, green, yellowish, or white. 



87 

Farther to demonstrate that the true test of the degree 
of perfection to which a silk crop can be brought, is in 
the operation and ultimate results of the sixth and seventh 
age, let us be reminded that small cocoons, at farthest of 
an inch (English measure), however numerous, constitute 
a very inferior quality and quantity ; the true size and 
standard is, more or less, of an inch and a half, and six- 
teen of them, promiscuously taken, should weigh an ounce. 

Before dismissing this subject of the last exertion of 
the phalaena bombyx, we will relate what results were ob- 
tained by Sauvages in his researches of the sexual organs 
of the silkworm, than whom none could yet supply us with 
better and more instructive materials. Intent on the dis- 
covery of an ovarium, he recurred first to the caterpillar 
at its most advanced form and age ; but as many as were 
opened with a scalpel, taking quantities of them indiscrimi- 
nately, contained an ovarium thus described (vid. p. 81.) : 
A long cord, swimming in the general cavity of the worm, 
showing to the naked eye an innumerable quantity of small 
round bodies, thus similar to a string of beads. This cord 
also was adhering or suspended at the silk bags, as if re- 
curring from side to side. His multiplied researches on 
various sets having never offered another kind of sexual 
organ, he was left to conjecture that there was no male in 
the brood, that they all were females or hermaphrodites. 
This conclusion, however, could not stand with the well- 
established distinction of male or female cocoons, which are 
found in good crops to be of an equal number. There- 
fore Sauvages dropped the inquiry, because he could not 
establish the two sexes with one organ only appertaining 
to the female gender, for the same was again ascertained 
to exist in the mother papillo before and after the egg* 



88 

were laid ; nor can it be seen in the male, the body ot 
which is much smaller. 

Although the problem has not been resolved by our 
predecessor so often quoted, nor by any other, we would 
remark, that from his observations, we feel authorized 
to conclude, that the well-ascertained existence of an 
ovarium in all the individuals of the tribe, is sufficient to 
indicate the two sexes, if the entomologist inquirer in 
the case will please to adopt the rule we have laid, to be 
that in nature for the formation of the sexual attributes, 
namely — that they are the last in the scale and graduation 
of organic perfection and completion ; that an ovarium 
being under such a provision, becomes altered into a set of 
what the anatomists call vasa deferentia, would be suffi- 
cient to constitute the other sex — the contact of either will 
afterwards be necessary to give existence to a fecundating 
germ! 

The bombyx phalaena, or moth, emerges from the cocoon, 
or ball, on the eleventh or twelfth day after completion, to 
the fifteenth, according to the temperature in which it has 
been kept — 65 to 78° Fahrenheit. This operation may 
be longer protracted in relation to the large or whole 
quantity of cocoons, that have been set apart and placed 
under observation ; it must not, however, be delayed longer 
than half a day, as soon as some stain or spot is found on 
one end of the cocoon. Thus returned into the bosom of 
nature, our winged insect will obey to the instinctive im- 
pulse of its re-production, by seeking or joining its mate* 
Culturists of different nations use different methods to aid 
and secure the success of this process ; and, as far as rea- 
son and analogy can suggest, in order to obtain the best 
quality and the greatest quantity of this animated seed. 
In an economical point of view, it is an object of great 



89 

value to some, of profitable commerce to others. The 
importance of all possible care must, indeed, be the more 
surmised, by those who already know that in the state of 
nature, this papillo, of about one inch long, is very clumsy, 
weak on its legs, apt to loose its grasp on vertical surfaces, 
using its wings only to flutter near or about the mate it 
approaches, and from which it does not separate during 
four or six hours, unless it is interfered with. Both parties 
are of a dusky white color ; they differ by the size only, 
the female being thicker than the male, who is restless, 
solicitous, and impatient. 

Count Dandolo is the first who taught us how to turn 
to profit the generative powers of this insect, by secluding 
it in boxes or cages, and from the light of the day, which 
it dislikes, and assorting, afterwards, the couples, on proper 
frames— measuring, calculating, and apportioning their 
time of service and rest ! 

Other Italian and French culturists are not so par- 
ticular and careful. In Tuscany, the farmers' wives, how- 
ever, string together one male cocoon to two females, and 
fasten the bunch with a needle and thread, on a piece of 
cloth, in a corner of a dark room ;* in a few days, the 
cloth is found covered with seeds. We did nearly the 
same in the Cevennes, and other southerly departments 
of France ; but our balls, well selected in point of size, 



*This, and other subjects of information on the culture of silk in Tus- 
cany (Etruria), the most ancient agricultural district of Europe, we have 
drawn from an Italian manuscript, procured on the spot, by our friend, Pro- 
fessor N. Carter — than whom no recent observing and classical tourist 
throughout the whole of Italy, has embraced a greater range of useful in- 
quiries. To this manuscript we shall again have occasion to resort, for 
citations more likely to prove the value of the document, for wbich we re- 
turn to him our best thanks and respects. 

12 



90 

were promiscuously strung as a garland, over black cloth, 
against the walls, or on tables. In both ways the method 
produces from five to six hundred seeds from each fecun- 
dated phalsena. 

In America, a more simple and natural way is dictated 
— to receive the seeds upon large tables upon papers, on 
which the cocoons and the moths are left to take care of 
themselves. The papers are afterwards folded with the 
seeds, and kept for use at another return of the season. 

The proportion, quality, and the most approved colors 
of the silkworm seeds, may furnish us, hereafter, ample 
materials of instruction. Suffice it to say, at present, that 
the eggs, which were at first a pale yellow, become of a 
dark gray, or slate, ashy color ; that the life of the papillo 
has been limited to the functions and end of this seventh 
age ; and that it would be the sooner exhausted if uselessly 
wasted by sunshine or great light, to which they should 
not be exposed. 

There are various species of the silkworm : 

1st. The small sort, which we have already designated 
as the tri-moulting. 

2d. The large sort, or four-moulting. 

3d. The species called white and large. 

4th. The sort called yellow. 

The above nomenclature, by the Count Dandolo, is 
not characteristic enough. Nor did M. Bonafoux notice 
more than two sorts, the tri-moulting one, and the white. 
Sauvages has more scientifically given us, first, the small- 
est class of three moultings, and which spins silk one 
week sooner than the others, of a good quality, but in a 
ball or cocoon of much inferior size. This sort is also 
distinct from the few very small that may be met with in a 
larere nursery — dwarf ones abortive from some unknown 



9l1 

cause. He calls them lusettes, or forerunners; they stand 
as an exception and proof, that a whole brood has been 
well trained in point of time ; but they do not constitute, 
like the first, a characteristic class, which, in other res- 
pects, offers not any advantage over any of the others. 
2d. The white silkworm, literally so called from the 
white silk, or cocoons. 3d. The black, or spotted, tigris, 
4th. The greenish silk caterpillars, producing cocoons of 
that cast, yet rare enough. 

By the same authority we are told, that these vari- 
ous colors of the worms, or of their silks, white, straw, 
orange and green, must be accidental, and from a variety 
of fodder (the white excepted) ; because no perfectly exclu- 
sive experiment could ever be obtained, even in the small- 
est race or sort, called tri-moulting. Our modern cultu- 
rists are not altogether determined nor satisfactory, in re- 
lation to their preference of the white, or of another natu- 
rally colored silk* 

The habits and wants of the precious insect which we 
have thus described, in all stages and metamorphoses of 
its life, should be our only guides, and furnish us princi- 
ples to direct the profitable method in rearing any quan- 
tity of them, and obtaining proportionate crops of their 
produce. Some of those habits and wants are plain 
enough, obviously explained and successfully attended to ; 
but others, again, are problematic or mysterious, nor can 
they be accounted for on either the old or new method of 
managing the nurseries. We may adopt certain practical 
modes, justified by experience, but not adapted to theory; 
and some of these are somewhat complicated or expensive. 
We beg leave to notice some of the above problems or 
difficulties : 

1st. Why is it that several parcels of seeds from the 



best brood or nursery, have been successfully hatched,, 
either by natural or by artificial heat, and that one parcel 
of the same has remained lifeless, and proved totally dead, 
by having been simply wrapped in a piece or bag of silk ? 
2d. A certain limit of temperature, or a standing de- 
gree of heat, is unquestionably necessary to rear a 
brood of silkworms through their successive ages — say 
from 76° Fahrenheit to 86°. It is also ascertained that 
their growth, or the retardment of it, in order to equalize 
the different ages of uneven sorts, is obtained by increas- 
ing the heat, or by abstracting it ; but what is more aston- 
ishing respecting the necessity of caloric for our insect, is 
the modern rule of making frequent blazing fires in the 
broad hearths of the nurseries, during the fifth age, pre- 
cisely when the worms otherwise seem to require, and fare 
better with a temperature lower than that at which they 
have been precedingly kept. (Vide Dandolo.) Never 
seemed precepts and practical rules more in contradiction 
with the natural state of things, than these, For the silk 
bombyx is a cold insect, and as cold to the touch as any 
herb or parcel of grass fresh gathered, being thus 20 or 
25° lower in its temperature than the standing range of 
the thermometer. 

The query would now be — If caloric is so far neces- 
sary to the growth and health of silkworms, and yet that 
insect does not receive it nor participate in it sensibly, 
although it visibly receives a benefit from it, and cannot 
be materially injured by it, — pray what can be the cause 
or principle of its vital powers f 

3d. A third question is from impure air, miasmatic and 
marshy atmosphere, thick and southerly damp winds — - 
from humid, soiled, and wet fodder, or fermenting, putrid 
litters* of all thing* the most dreaded in the silk-nurserie* 



93 

In addition to which, why is it that a severe thunder-gust 
and lightning will in a short time distract and overturn 
the whole economy of a healthy moulting or spinning 
brood, which would not have been in the least disturbed 
by the report of fire-arms exploded in the very rooms ? 
(Vid. Abbe Sauvages.) 

Where, then, is the offensive cause in those various con- 
ditions, or violent actions ? By what law of nature is the 
insect ruined or protected ? 

Such are a few of the problems not yet resolved, and 
such are a few of the habits and wants of the silkworms, 
which have not been explained even at this advanced pe- 
riod of time, nor in any of the most ancient European 
silk districts. To a direct investigation of them, eminent 
culturists have only substituted means and modes calcula- 
ted to meet practical exigencies, which are in a great mea- 
sure complicated or expensive, but which, in our humble 
opinion, would be more easily and successfully remedied 
under the guidance of philosophical principles which it 
will be our further task to prove. 



Remarks on the Fodder which is exclusively suitable for 

the Silk-worm. 

This subject commands our particular attention, inas- 
much as we would at once do away that spirit of conjec- 
ture which in all times has induced many persons to sup- 
pose that many more than one vegetable substance exists 
in nature that could favour the growth of silk. Others 
also, with obvious and proper motives, would provide for 
a substitute in those cases of retarded vegetation by late 
frosts, which frequently expose a whole brood too soon 



94 

hatched by the artificial method, to be many days deprived 
of foliage. This is an accident the less imputable to want 
of foresight, that silk growers on a large scale are obliged 
to keep their brood simultaneous with the growth of the foli- 
age as much as it is possible. It will, however, seldom take 
place in any prejudicial degree among farmers or pro- 
prietors of plantations, who can always keep some shel- 
tered or hedge trees, or nurseries in which a few early 
buddings may be at hand and prove sufficient even to a 
great litter of them. Again, in such a case it is well un- 
derstood, that by lowering the temperature of the nursery 
the growth of the insect and the want of food can be 
checked one or two days without injury, while the white 
mulberry-tree itself never disappoints our expectation of 
its early putting forth. 

This occurrence, with another which we will point out, 
has been the source and cause of much anxiety and in- 
cessant researches for a substitute to the mulberry-tree. 
That great experimenter, the learned Sauvages, says, that 
in his time the magnaniers held in great repute the 
leaves of the elm, of the oak, of the rose-bush, and of 
the rubus, blackberry, as having much analogy to the 
mulberry ; but the American silk culturists have made a 
step farther, by introducing the simple and early garden 
lettuce. To this we would give our assent above all 
others as truly harmless : it is a fact, however, that if all 
these choice plants or herbs were offered mixed with a few 
mulberry leaves to the small insects, they would imme- 
diately creep up and adhere to one only, their favourite, and 
leave the others. Facts have sometimes been alleged to 
the contrary, or apparently doubtful ; for instance, a par- 
cel of grown but sickly caterpillars were thrown away on 
a spot where a few Indian corn plants were thriving : 



they soon were revived by the open air, and were able to 
climb and to feed upon the leaves. What can this prove, 
if the insects were there in a state of starvation ? 

Thus we have it incontrovertibly asserted, that in con- 
formity to its name the bombyx mori is emphatically and 
exclusively well fed by the genus mulberry, and that the 
white sort contains for it the earlier and greater quantity 
of nutriment and of the elements necessary to constitute 
the silk, as the reader may well recollect by referring him- 
self to page 48 of our treatise on the culture of that plant. 
Mr. Bonafoux of Piedmont would propose, however, the 
use of the Broussonetia, or paper-mulberry (very common 
in this country). Like all others of the genus, it contains 
both principles of food and silk, and perhaps differs only 
from the white but by the extreme coarseness and tough- 
ness of the leaves, and this not being an objecti n in the 
fifth age of the caterpillar, after its last moulting, when it 
is strong and extremely voracious, when large nurseries 
require fodder by many thousand pounds in a day, and 
the mounting may be accidentally delayed many days. 
If the orchards are then all stripped, a little help from the 
broussonetia would be acceptable. In the year 1826 our 
Italian instructor gave it with great advantage on the third 
and fourth days of the fifth age, and resolved to use it 
again in succeeding experiments. 



INTELLIGENCE AND CORRESPONDENCE 



FOR THE 



SILK CULTURIST. 

No. I. 



NEW-YORK. 

Pursuant to preparatory measures and resolutions 
by the American Institute, July 1828, a Silk Committee, 
composed of Messrs. Wm. Wiley, T. B. Wakeman, and 
Ralph Lockwood, did instruct and authorise Dr. Felix 
Pascalis, forthwith to import from Europe such a quan- 
tity of white mulberry seeds, to be placed at their dis- 
posal, and used under his direction, as he might think 
to be sufficient for the season and district. — The same 
having been obtained from different public gardens of 
the capitals of France and Montpellier, at the shortest 
possible notice ; the distribution was commenced in New- 
York during the autumn after public notice, with printed 
directions and instructions, not only to all applicants of the 
state of New- York, but to those of the other confederte 
states, with this only condition, — that they should be ow- 
ners or occupants of a defined space of cultivable ground, 
and that the situation and proportion of beds and nurse- 
ries, in reserve for the mulberry tree, could be in every 
instance faithfully recorded. Said instructions were plain 
but minutely drawn up for all that relates to the process 
of sowing ; and we were much gratified to find afterwards 

13 



98 

that the same were reprinted in many of the neighbouring 
or distant country newspapers. 

In consequence of this first operation of the American 
Institute, and which has been fully accomplished before 
the setting in of the winter season, several respectable 
individuals of our acquaintance have been patriotically in- 
duced to join us in our efforts and opportunities to obtain 
seeds on their own account or for their friends, so that 
upon a fair calculation we may affirm that no less than 
twenty pounds of mulberry seeds were introduced in this 
part of North America within six months past; which 
quantity is really immense, considering that sixteen thou- 
sand trees might really be the produce from one ounce 
only of such small seeds. It should also be said, for the 
information of all persons who might desire like supplies 
from the south of Europe, that, as we had foreseen, the 
destructive war in the Mediterranean, Greek, and Turk- 
ish territories has caused so much ruin there, of every kind 
of produce, that no order sent to Marseilles for seeds or 
plants could be executed, owing to the scarcity or exorbi- 
tant price of the articles, which difficulties should pro- 
bably dictate more diligence or measures more peremp- 
tory on the part of new purchasers. 

The American Institute of New York was incorporated 
by an act of the legislature, April, 1829, under a consti- 
tution and power of organization which we will hereafter 
communicate ; and the following are the present officers 
and trustees : — 

John Mason, President. 

Peter H. Schenck, 

Anson Hadyn, \Vice- Presidents 

Curtis Bolton, 



99 

David L. Haight, Treasurer* 

Thaddeus B. Wakeman, Corres. Secretary. 

John A. Si dell, Record, Secretary. 

Silk Committee. 

Messrs. Wakeman, Pascalis, Wiley, 
and Lockwood. 

N. B. The members of the Institute are divided into 
four departments — agriculture, commerce, manufactures, 
and the mechanic arts. 

CONNECTICUT. 

In our preceding pages, 25 and 32, we have honour- 
ably mentioned much that we already know of the most 
prominent advances in the culture of silk, made in the 
state of Connecticut, which, at this period of time, is 
unquestionably, in a national point of view, the most use- 
fully employed, and the first entitled to the profits of this 
valuable source of industry, which we have endeavoured 
to investigate in these pages. Witness the following docu- 
ment : — 

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the Congress of 
the United States of America, now in session at Washington. 

The Petition of the Towns of Mansfield, Ashford, Chaplin, 
Hampton, Coventry, and Tolland, in Windham and Tolland 
counties, state of Connecticut, by their Committees, legally 
appointed and assembled in said Mansfield, on the 6th day of 
February, 1828 : 



100 



'' RESPECTFULLY REPRESENTS, 

That about the year 1760 the white mulberry was in- 
troduced into the town of Mansfield. That the first silk 
was made about four years afterwards. 

The seed of the mulberry and of the silk worm were 
first introduced by an enterprising citizen of said Mans- 
field, who made considerable exertions to extend it through 
the country, but without effect. 

From the period of its first introduction until the close 
of the revolutionary war but very little was done, barely 
sufficient to prevent it from becoming entirely extinct. 

The want of experience and skill necessarily rendered 
the first attempts unsuccessful. 

In the year 1783 the legislature of this state offered a 
small bounty upon the mulberry tree and the silk. This 
small encouragement induced the citizens of Mansfield to 
engage more generally in the cultivation of the tree and 
the manufacturing of silk. Availing themselves of the 
means afforded them by the prior introduction of the seed, 
the business soon spread through the town to a consider- 
able extent, so that in the year 1793 three hundred and 
sixty-two pounds of raw silk were made in said town. 

From that period it has been gradually increasing, so 
that at present about one half of the families are engaged 
in the business, who make annually from five to fifty 
pounds of raw silk in each family, and a few families 
from seventy-five to one hundred pounds each, annually. 

The encouragement thus afforded by the legislature 
being speedily withdrawn, had little or no effect in the 
other towns in the state. 

. The business, however, has been gradually extending 
to some of the neighbouring towns. So that at present 
there is probably manufactured in all the neighbourinc 



10! 

towns, collectively, an equal quantity with that manufac- 
tured in Mansfield. 

The amount of raw silk manufactured in this vicinity 
may he estimated at about seven thousand pounds an- 
nually, which is principally wrought into sewing silk. 

This section of the country is not peculiarly adapted to 
the growing of silk ; but it may be cultivated, with equal 
success in almost all parts of our country. The middle, 
southern, and western states, from the nature of the soil 
and temperature of the climate, are probably better adapt- 
ed to its culture than our own. 

If suitable encouragements were afforded to induce a 
general alteration to the business, the United States would 
soon produce an abundance of the raw material, sufficient 
for our own consumption. And, by the application of 
suitable skill, it might be wrought into all the varieties 
which necessity, convenience, and fancy may require. 
Yet, in the year ending September 30, 1826, the value 
of silks imported amounted to above eight millions of 
dollars, of which above three millions were imported from 
India, for which so much specie was taken from this 
country. 

The history of France proves that the introduction of 
the culture of silk into that country, by its government, 
has conduced to the present prosperity, wealth, and 
independence of foreign nations, more than any other 
single cause. And the experience of this small section 
of our own country evinces the fact that the same wealth 
may be produced from the same cause in our own 
country. 

While some other branches of domestic industry, which 
claim protection, may be thought to tend to create mono- 
polies, and have a demoralizing effect upon the commu- 



102 

nity, this is entirely free from any such tendency, and 
from its very nature is purely domestic. The raw mate- 
rial must from necessity be produced by families, in their 
separate situations on farms, entirely free from the mono- 
polising effect of the large cotton and woollen establish- 
ments, and with as little danger to morals as any agricul- 
tural employment. 

It is likewise a branch of industry which gives employ- 
ment to those members of families who cannot be em- 
ployed in more laborious branches of agricultural and 
manufacturing business. 

We find from experience and observation, that mankind 
are more easily induced to engage in those branches of 
business which afford an immediate profit, and want some- 
thing to stimulate them to engage in a business which 
must be matured by the revolutions of seasons. 

It is this stimulant, which it is the peculiar duty of the 
government to afford. 

A proper application of which will, in a few years, 
make us entirely independent of foreign nations for this 
necessary, useful, and sumptuous article. 

We, therefore, not only for our particular benefit, but 
for the permanent interest of our common country, most 
respectfully pray your honourable body to adopt such 
measures as may be deemed expedient to excite a general 
attention to this subject, and to directly encourage and 
protect this very important branch of domestic industry.'' 

DELAWARE. 

From that state we derive the fondest expectation of 
success in the pursuit of the rich produce of silk. By an 
act of their legislature at a last sitting, an appropriation of 
thirty thousand dollars was passed for the propagation of 



103 

ihe mulberry, and other means of encouraging the raising 
of silk worms, and manufacturing silk, by bounties and 
gifts of medals, &c. Our information from that quarter 
represents already a considerable quantity of the necessary 
plants in readiness, and respectable cultivators with 
annual nurseries of thirty and forty thousand worms. This 
is a quantity which every family, well trained and organ- 
ised, may always conveniently obtain, and thus secure 
from ten to twelve pounds of pure and reeled silk. They 
have it as usually mixed, of the white, orange, and straw- 
coloured silk ; but they speak of the black (tigre) worms 
which can spin in twenty-six days. These are of course 
of the tri-movlting kind, which are known to produce a 
less quantity, but a finer silk, and which is highly recom- 
mended by Dandolo. We may not perhaps have well 
understood our informant. 

PHILADELPHIA. 

The reader may remember that in our introductory 
discourse, page 23, we observed that this capital had not 
been favoured previous to the revolutionary war, by the 
Colonial Government, with any proper step or encourage- 
ment for the culture of silk ; that it was commenced under 
the advice and patriotic services of the great Dr. Frank- 
lin, and by the help of a company organized for the 
creation of a stock to be appropriated to this all-import- 
ant object. Subsequent events, however, soon put an 
end to this laudable and efficient undertaking ; we do not 
know, however, that it was entirely given up throughout 
that State, which is well known to have always been fore- 
most in all agricultural and scientific improvement. So 
far, of late years, considerable progress has been made 
in both the city and country as to leave a full prospect of 



104 

success not in the least doubtful. The Pennsylvania So- 
ciety for promoting the Culture of Silk, has recently 
been formed in Philadelphia : the following are the names 
of the officers : — 

President, Benjamin R. Morgan. 

Vice-Presidents, Joseph Hemphill, Turner Camac. 

Secretary, Matthew Carey. 

Treasurer, Nathan Bunker. 

Acting Committee, F. Dusar, Samuel Alexander, Dan- 
iel J. Rhoads, Joseph P. Grant, James Mease, Joseph 
Ripka, Isaac M'Cauley. 

The annexed premiums have been offered by the so- 
ciety, to silk culturists. 

1. A premium of sixty dollars for the greatest quantity 
of sewing silk, of the best quality, produced within this 
state, from cocoons raised within the same, and in one fa- 
mily, not less than twenty pounds ; forty dollars for the 
next greatest quantity, and best quality, produced under 
the same conditions, not less than fifteen pounds ; and 
twenty-five dollars for the next greatest quantity and best 
quality, not less than ten pounds. 

2. A premium of fifty dollars for the greatest quantity 
of good cocoons, raised within this state, not less than one 
hundred pounds : thirty dollars for the next greatest quan- 
tity, not less than seventy-five pounds ; and twenty dollars 
for the next greatest quantity, not less than fifty pounds ; 
to be claimed before the first of September. 

3. A premium of fifty dollars for the largest number of 
the best white mulberry trees, raised within twelve miles of 
this city, not less than four hundred ; thirty dollars for 
the next greatest quantity, not less than three hundred; 
and twenty dollars for the next greatest quantity, not less 
than two hundred. 



105 

The premiums for the mulberry trees to be claimed 
within three years from the second day of April, 1828. 

VIRGINIA. 

In consequence of some slight encouragement, offered 
by the last legislature of the commonwealth to the pro- 
duction of raw silk, we are informed that several of our 
agriculturists have undertaken to rear silk worms, with 
prospects of success. The raising of worms has been 
engaged in with much spirit, in the neighbourhood of 
Petersburg, Va. One gentleman, Mr. Hannon, of that 
place, has near one hundred thousand worms, just ready 
to spin. They have been fed upon the leaves of the 
common mulberry. If experience should show that a 
portion of our industry can be best employed in produc- 
ing this article, its cultivation will open to us a new 
source x>f national wealth. — Patriot, July 7, 1828. 

OHIO. 

This State is in a line, beyond the mountains, with 
many others which, from Canada and Acadia down 
to the mouth of the Mississippi, were anciently visited 
by French settlers and adventurers, even before the At- 
lantic colonies were established (vide Charlevoix, F. 
Hennepin). Although in those years we cannot find any 
record alluding to attempts towards the culture of silk 
hy Europeans, it is nevertheless a fact, that the white 
mulberry tree has been frequently seen in those regions, 
besides the other natural species of the genus which are to 
be seen every where. It is another fact also, that from 
the Michigan and the Illinois to the gulf of Mexico there 
are more French families, by descent and language, than 
on the eastern shore : it will not, therefore, appear un- 

14 



toe; 

founded to our apprehension, that there is actually as 
great a disposition in that part of the country to favour 
the culture of silk as in any of the maritime and commer- 
cial states. 

We read in the Western Tiller of Cincinnati, April 17th, 
a communication to the Agricultural Society of Hamilton 
county, respecting a considerable provision of seeds made 
up and presented by James Prentiss, Esq. of this city, for 
distribution among his friends in that State ; the whole of 
which were deposited with Benjamin Drake, Esq. the 
chairman of a silk committee in that place. They were 
sent with our printed instructions for the sowing and ma- 
nagement of seedlings. Success to all ! of which we enter- 
tain very little doubt, if the attempt is persevered in. We 
beg leave, nevertheless, to tender our respectful thanks to 
our friend Mr. Prentiss and to the editor of the Tiller, 
William T. Ferris, for the good report they have given of 
us in that interesting journal. 

We have lately read a No. of the Republican Com- 
piler, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, June 23, 1829. It con- 
tains the address of the agricultural society of Hamilton 
county, Ohio, by Messrs. B. Drake, E D. Mansfield, 
and Charles Fox, committee of the same institution, 
dated April 1, 1829. It is, in general principles, an in- 
teresting and instructive document, from which we would 
except nothing but the recommendation of using chesnut 
leaves as brushwood for the worms to spin upon ; this is 
worse even than a simple bit of paper rolled in a cone ; for 
the latter would not, like the dried leaf, be broken and 
mixed with the entangling tow, and cause a long and tedi- 
ous work to be removed. The silk grower must at least be 
as good a mathematician himself as the insect, which is 
seeking for equilateral triangular supports, to establish its 



107 

last abode, with conveniency and free circulation of air. 
Among the heath kind of shrubs or plants, that which is 
neither thorny nor very high, and has no leaves, answers 
to the above principle, and will be the best to produce 
the least quantity of tow, and the most regularly formed 
cocoon. On that subject more anon. 

MASSACHUSETTS. 

The following from the New-England Farmer, June 
12th, 1829, must convince the friends of American im- 
provements, that many a Jason among them can, without 
any expedition beyond the seas, be put in possession of 
the golden fleece. 

" At a meeting of the trustees of the Worcester 
County Agricultural Society, especially convened April 
23d, 1829, it was voted, that in compliance with the in- 
junctions of the legislature, in their late act, continuing 
and extending the liberality of the government to the en- 
couragement of agriculture and manufactures, the follow- 
ing premium be proposed ; — to the proprietor of the 
best Nursery of Mulberry Trees, within the 
county, in number and quality, on the first Wednesday of 
May 1832, to be determined upon inspection and com- 
parison by a committee to be appointed by the Trustees 
for that purpose, upon the application of those who shall 
claim to be competitors twenty days next preceding the 
said first Wednesday of May, $60 00. 

" W. D. Wheeler, Rec. Sec.'' 

SOUTH CAROLINA — STATESBURG. 

In the American Farmer, Baltimore, July 3, 1829, 
we find a doleful account of the great mortality which 
happened this year in an immense nursery of silk worms, 



108 

the above place, and which swept off nine hundred and 
fifty thousand insects out of one million ! The calamity 
is attributed to various causes, namely the rainy constitu- 
tion of the weather, the wet state of the leaves, or to 
change of the fodder, from white to red mulberry, &tc- 
Whatever causes may have induced this disease and 
rendered it so fatal, and what useful hints or advices 
could be inferred to avert a like danger and destruction, 
it would be difficult to tell ; owing to a statement in the 
narrative, with respect to the size of the building which 
was appropriated to the nursery, for the accommodation 
of one million of worms : it is said to be eighty feet in 
length by thirty in width ; it is, therefore, evident that it 
could not contain such a quantity of silk worms, which 
is the result of twenty-five ounces of their seed. The 
dimensions of the building, appropriated by Count Dan- 
dolo to the raising of five ounces only, which gives two 
hundred thousand worms, were seventy-seven feet by 
thirty. There is, we know, some difference in the mea- 
surements here mentioned ; it is not, however, so great but 
we could well overlook it ; from the above authority and 
from that of Monsieur M* Bonafoux we calculate that 
one million of silk worms require twelve thousand nine 
hundred and thirty-seven square feet of space on hurdles, 
and a nursery of the same width as the above, should at 
least be three hundred feet long. Were we permitted to 
offer a conjecture of the remote cause of the sad event in 
Statesburg nursery, we would find it similar to the cata- 
strophe which happened to a certain noble culturist in 
France, and which we have related at page 39 ; that 
is> an error or oversight upon the space necessary to ac- 
commodate your caterpillars, on sound and clean litters. 
As for the proximate cause which rapidly must have en- 



109 

gendered pestilence, whether it was wet fodder, or a long 
continuation of damp atmosphere, it is all likely; but 
nothing more direct and judicious than the remarks of 
the editor, of the ordure itself of the worms, a powerful 
absorbent of moisture and becoming terribly deleterious. 
In reference to the definition given of the above pesti- 
lence we think it very difficult to describe by names the dis- 
eases of the silk worm, they are different in both the French 
and Italian language; the first call trips those worms 
wh ich are found dead and yet preserve an appearance of 
life and health ; they call them also morts-blancs, morts- 
fiats. The same is meant by Dandolo, page 289. 

FRANCE. 

Extracts of a letter from M. Alex. Eyries, Member of 
the Royal Horticultural Society of Paris, &c, to the 
editor. 

" Havre de Grace, December 26, 1828. 

" A friend of ours has just completed, in Pondicherry, 
an establishment of silk culture on such an extensive 
scale as to secure 9000 pounds of silk per annum. He 
of course has attended to all the requisites for a sufficient 
quantity of the mulberry tree, and for the filature of silk. 

" Our government has thought it necessary to propa- 
gate forthwith the morus alba sinensis in our meridional 
departments. This species gives larger foliage, and 
puts forth earlier in the spring than any of the white kind. 
I have seen an ample collection of it in the Botanical 
Royal Garden of Montpellier. Besides the attributes 
above described, this kind of mulberry will better weather 
out the cold season of our northern departments, &c." 



110 
[From the same.] 

"April 9th, 1829. 
" The white large leafed mulberry continues to be dis- 
tributed by order of government, and is propagated by 
cuttings, a great quantity of which have been provided for 
and prepared principally in the Botanic Garden of Mont- 
pellier. It has been intended by the same authority, that 
those who make it a business to cultivate the tree in nur- 
series should be served the first, until a certain fixed 
quantity has been thus disposed of, other applicants may 
afterwards be attended to. There cannot be, therefore, 
much of the seeds to be expected for the ensuing sum- 
mer ; but I hope to be able to transmit you a few sap- 
lings by next autumn. Yours, &tc." 



The following is an account in part, of some effects pro- 
duced by electrical experiments on silk worms. 

New- York, July 8, 1829. 
DEAR SIR, 

Having been gratified by your entire confidence 
in the management of a little silk worm nursery, in which 
you placed an equal number for experiment, I would beg 
leave to submit my report. 

The spring vegetation has been so much retarded 
by unfavorable weather, that I could not venture the 
hatching of our silkworm seeds until the latter part of 
May. 

This process was done in a dry and properly aired 
room, but without the aid of artificial heat, trusting only to 
the progressive and spontaneous influence of the season : 
the hatching went on pretty well after the 23d, but an 
unseasonable return of cold and rain deprived us of foli- 



Ill 

age, and the insects were kept four days on garden let- 
tuce, and we lost many. 

The remainder of our stock (about 1500) had no other 
advantage, until the 17th of June, but a sufficiency of excel- 
lent white mulberry leaves, change of litters, and occasional 
airing of the rooms ; and no correction, by artificial heat, 
of the standing temperature, the range of which often 
varied ten or more degrees ; they nevertheless attained 
to their third age or moulting in general good health, 
although with some mixture of unequal and small sizes. 
You observed at this time that the worms that had been 
procured from Connecticut, (and which had not been 
mixed with my seeds,) were of the black and spotted kind 
called by the French tigres ; and that as many of this sort 
as were found among my lot might be put with the rest so 
as to have the litters more uniform in kinds and to select 
the strongest for future experiments. 

The tigres indeed appeared more healthy than the white 
or yellow kinds ; they were therefore divided and spread 
over two separate hurdles, and, as you directed, there was 
placed under them a sheet of strong twilled silk, on which 
new litters might be formed to replace old ones, thereby 
intercepting the circulation of the air through the hurdles, 
so much desired by others. 

But you think this insect to be electric, and even to pos- 
sess the faculty of abstracting electricity from the atmos- 
phere ; and that by effecting the insulation of the insect, you 
favour the accumulation of that element. Indeed the 
rapid growth and healthy state of these worms would 
seem to illustrate and corroborate the principle. 

Shortly after, and when the worms reared over silk had 
attained the fourth age, you caused one hurdle to be 
insulated completely by glass supports, and the worms 



11.2 

thereon to be fully electrified, which operation was per- 
formed under the direction of Mr. Everett, medical-electri- 
cian of this city, and by means of his very complete and 
powerful portable machine. It was a clear day, the ther- 
mometer at 77 degrees Fahrenheit ; the litter had just 
been renewed with fresh mulberry leaves, which proved 
excellent conductors of the fluid. The first contact 
seemed to agitate the whole litter, and the insects previ- 
ously torpid commenced eating voraciously. The opera- 
tion lasted an hour, and was afterwards repeated as often 
as the state of the air would permit, until the 28th of June, 
when so many of the worms showed a disposition to mount 
and spin, that we could delay no longer to furnish them 
with cabins of brushwood for that purpose, and these were 
soon filled with our industrious family, their period of ex- 
istence with respect to that of the others being abridged 
by a full week. 

Their cocoons, which have been examined by many 
visitors, were declared much larger than any others of this 
country, and are uniformly white, slightly tinged with a 
green hue. 

Hurdle No. 1, has averaged 16 or 17 cocoons to an 
ounce troy weight, of the first quality. 

The worms of hurdle No. 2, which were experimented 
upon by insulation with silk, are in no way inferior to the 
first, except in point of time, being a week later in mount- 
ing. 

The other division of our spinners, together with the 
respective quantities and qualities of silk, will be the sub- 
ject of a future communication. 

Yours, most respectfully, 

T. M. KERRISON. 

To Dr. F. Pascalis. 



ERRATA. 

Page 12, last line of note, add April, 1829, 

25, line 16, for 3 or 400, read 3 or 4,000, 

29, 9 from bottom, for cases read cares, 

44, 14, for dicotyledenous, read dicotyledonous, 

— — 44, 16, for there exists read there exist, 

51, 3 from bottom, for drilling read dibbling, 

80, 1, for at 15 or 20° colder, read at 10 w 15°. 



LP.3 D % 







\ THE 







'W^ 



SILK CULTURIST. 



1. 






NEW-YORK v JULY 15, 1829. 



TO BE PUBLISHED QUARTERLY. 




jfe A superficial glance at the pages of the Silk Culturist will show 
\$ ^ e reader th ^ in man y and distant parts of the United States con- 
' siderable advances in the art of raising Silk have alrea< 
made ; and although often perhaps without co-operation or mutual 
interchange of information, often, too, carried on with very different 
grades of instruction and success, yet always with intelligence and 
industry. To elicit therefore and propagate all the desirable im- 
provements which experience may suggest to some few, before the 
like is attained by others, nothing seems wanting but a channel o<* 
communication, a circulating repertory of knowledge and practic 
matter among the culturists themselves, who would be benefited 
by an exchange of their observations, and by comparing the state- J 
ments of their operations and successful results, &c. This is not I *X 
all. The value and use of silk as a staple or produce of the coun- ^Z 
3V/ tr ^' °. r as a commercial articleof manufacture, cannot be well as- &j 3 
=£* certamed, save when there is a proper and certain scale whereby 5d % ' 
I ?& t0 judge its quantity and quality; then it becomes a tangible capital, «#S 
**As readily disposible by those who possess it, and are acquainted with l \ ' 
the call and demand for it, Mid where or how to barter for it. 

In these views we enteimin much hope of encouragement from 
American Silk Culturists, Utase subscription is respectfully solicit- 
ed, to be forwarded (post paid) to the publisher, W. B. Gilley, 94 
Broadway, or to the editor, 71 Liberty-street, New- York. Com- 
munications for the Work also will be thankfully received, and 
» advertisements inserted. 

j&U The Second Quarterly No. of the Silk Culturist will be issued *& 
CS? Wlt ^ the second ^lume of the Practical Instructions, in October 
*«§£ 1829, price 75 cents to the subscribers to the latter. The terms of 
£V\ subscription for a continued series will be proportionate to it future 
I3h£ extent and demand. 










